Walk in "De Utrecht" near Esbeek

 Next to the village where we live lies "De Utrecht", it is a vast area of woodlands. Here you see the trees in their early autumn colours. This picture was shot near to "Tulder".

 These are real autumn colours....

And here's a very nice small lake....the water is like a beautiful giant mirror.

Walk on the "Landschotse heide" near Westelbeers

 Last Saturday we decided to have a walk on the "Landschotse heide" near Westelbeers. Here's a picture of a nice mushroom.

 There were two white Herons flying from lake to lake.....here's the best one, shot with my "proven" bird lens: the Sigma 600mmF8 telephoto mirror lens (from hand)

And here's the "Keienhurkse ven". The water is very clear and blue, we didn't spot birds (except for the two white Herons...)

Abell 426 Perseus galaxy cluster with NGC1275 Seyfert galaxy

This is a picture of the Perseus galaxy Cluster Abell 426. It is one of the most massive structures in our galaxy and is standing at about 250 million lightyears distance from us. In its center is the very active Seyfert galaxy NGC1275, it is the 2nd most powerful radiosource in our universe. This picture was shot using my 200mmF5 Newtonian reflector with an Artemis 4021 moni in its prime focus. It is a combination of 7 20min exposures.

Here is a cropped and enhanced part of the picture above. The most bright galaxy is NGC1275.

 This is an inverted version of the picture. Now you can see much more galaxies. The whole field of view is completely filled with them.

 Here is an enlarged view on the center. If you look at NGC1275 you can see that it is not looking as a "standard" ellipsoid galaxy, it has flames coming out of it, pointing to the right and above.

CCD sensor cleaning of the Artemis4021

Last weekes more and more dust particles are gathering on the CCD sensor of the Artemis. I cannot calibrate them out using flat-fields, so it is time for a cleaning action.

First I have to figure out how to take the Artemis apart. After 1 hour of careful work I am looking freely at the sensor. This picture shows the backside.

After cleaning the sensor with swabs and alcohol I built the camera together. Here I am shooting flat-fiels on my EL panel to verify if the action was helpful....

It was, here is the new one, most dust particles are gone now.

Walk near the "Hildernisse"

Last Saturday we decided to have a walk near Bergen op Zoom. Under that village there is a small area called the "Brabantse wal", it is a special area where sand-grounds meat sea-clay. There's also a classic farm over there, called the "Hildernisse". I spotted this Robin hiding in the bushes near the farm.

M37 open cluster in Auriga

This is the open cluster M37 in constellation Auriga. It is a testpicture, a combination of 9x5min exposures, shot at almost full moon. I figured out the correct MPCC coma-corrector to CCD distance and shot these frames to verify this. The collimation and focus were not perfect. What bothers me most are the irritating dust particles. I just cannot get rid of them, even with calibration flatfield frames shot with my EL panel. For testing purposes the camera has been turned but these pesky particles remain in the same position. They must be on the sensor, no doubt about it....

Maffei 1 Galaxy: obscured by the Milky Way

Just slightly left of the middle of the picture is Maffei 1. Standing at 10 mln lightyears distance, it should be one of the brightest galaxies in the sky. It is obscured however by the Milky Way, which blocks 99% of its light. This is the reason that it took until 1968 before an Italian astronomer Paolo Maffei discovered it on one of his infrared astrophotographs. On the right is a small part of the "Heart and Soul nebula", but that is well within our Milky way. This picture was shot using my 200mmF5 Newtonian reflector, it is a combination of 10 20min exposures

This picture is zoomed in on Maffei 1. I also inverted the picture to show more detail of its outer regions.

Kollase die-hard observing weekend in Germany

 Last weekend we went with a group of amateur-astronomers to the famous Kollase deepsky observing weekend. When you arrive at the hotel you only see this small sign.

 After the 1st night the field is full with different kinds of telescopes. In the front is a Halpha-solar telescope, with this you can see prominences on the Sun.

 Saturday is the ATM (Amateur-telescope-making) day.....after a die-hard observing night there's always a  lot of stuff that needs repair....

We decided to stay 1 day longer. This was very smart, because that night was the one with the best seeing conditions. On this picture the telescopes (from left to right Meade 12" Lightbridge dobsonian, Skywatcher 200mmF5 Newtonian reflector in HEQ5pro mount, my telescope, and a GSO 200mmF6 Dobson. We observed many objects, the nicest ones were the Veil nebula west, galaxies Maffei 1 & NGC1023, and moon IO passing over Jupiter.