German windmills

Last week after a day of hard work we went for a walk to see those windmills. In the fields around our hotel was say many of those giants.

Computersystem ready

After 4 months of hard work the computersystem for my next project in Germany is more or less ready. Last week my Polish co-worker and me hard to work hard until late in the night to get the system going.........Here you see the 3 most important computersystems of the controlsystem.









And here is the backside of the sytem, cables, cables and even more cables.........Next week we will test the factory control system together with the customer in Germany.

Pushing hard on the Schaumann project

Last weeks I already pushed hard on the Schaumann re-automation project. This week we are going 150% for finalizing his project......I really enjoy the envolvement of many teammembers to finish this project to its final endresult, everybody is doing everything he can......to be continued.

At the Hooge Mierde post office

I noticed I didn't post many pictures of my beloved VFR800 yet. Yesterday I sold my Astrotech 32mm eyepiece to a fellow amateur astronomer. Here I'm at the postoffice (annex breadshop) in the morning waiting for it to open for delivery of my package with the eyepiece.....
After riding the VFR800 for 1 year I must say it is a marvellous motocycle. The only comment I have is the rough running at low revs......but who cares about that (I don't.....)

Flying again with the Calmato

After a few days of building a new airplane (after the Protech Azurro crashed) I had my first flights again today with a Calmato. Very nice airplane, flies easier than the Azurro.....

New airplane

Last sunday I crashed my Protech Azurro.....I made a big mistake during takeoff (too much up) and after that my plane crashed. Therefore was working very hard last 2 nights to finish my new Kyosho Calmato.....Unbelievabe, many things are already finished and everything fits. My previous plane was much more work, it took me weeks to finish it. The Calmato is very straightforward and simple to build, it took me 2 evenings........

Eyepieces collection

This is the collection after a few years of searching and looking around on the 2nd hand fora. The latest additions were the 33mm Willliam Optics SWAN, marvellous eyepiece, did me a lot of good in La Palma. This island has so dark nights that looking through a 33mm eyepiece gives a very nice view with a dark background. The latest addition is a 4mm TMB/Burgess Planetary eyepiece which drives my telescope to a power of 250x....

Astro holiday on La Palma

Here's a picture I took on La Palma with a Meade 250mm/F4 Schmidt Newton and my trusted Eos400d. Because I could not get autoguiding working I could only expose for 15sec. This is a stack of 180x15sec@ISO1600.





And a crop of M27











Here I'm observing the lower regions of Scorpio through the 250mm Schmidt Newton.






We also went on top of Roque de La Muchachos where the international observatory is situated. This is a picture of the GTC, the largest telescope on the site, just before its official inauguration.




My holiday workhorse: the 250mm Meade Schmidt Newton.











We also went for a walk on the volcanoes. Here you see the Teneguia that erupted in 1971.






We also went on a boat-trip to see the Island La Palma from the sea, afther that our captain found some dolphins.....






And here you see one of the chicken that are walking around the garden next to our holiday house........

Open day at aeroclub bladel

P51 Mustang flying in the sky.....









P51 cockpit.








Take a parachute......and jump!











Overview of the "Static"







A Hurricane......








The Wright flyer! After some tests in the sky!







And finally: The P51 on the static.

Sun with sunspot 1019

Today, 1-06-2009, I made this picture of the Sun, in the top of the picture you see sunspot 1019....










Here is a enlared picture of the area.

Landed for the 1st time

Last saturday and sunday we were on the airfield. On saturday I made 3 flights, last one pretty low (only a few meters above the ground). On sunday I flew again, some loopings and.......when I told the instructor after 10min that we should land he told me, what we? You will land......And, I managed to do it!
And the next flight also.
The 3rd flight I did with another instructor. This also included takeoff!!! Next hour we did nothing else than takeoff/land, takeoff/land until I got the hang of it. After a wrong approach I openened full throttle to abort the landing and then the motor stalled. The plane was already low and the instructor also couldn't prevent a crash in the field. Luckily it was just lying upside down. After some cleaning and difficult starting of the engine I could takeoff again and land. After that I did some loopings and a vrille. Then I did some taxiing on the airfield.

Sinsheim Museum

Last Sunday I visited the Sinsheim Museum. It has a nice collection of oldtimer cars, airplaines and war-equipment from the 2nd worldwar.....

Here's a German WWII Junckers transport airplane.





And Adolf Hitlers personal armoured Mercedes. Near this magnificent car was also a copy of the original bill from Mercedes to Adolf Hitler. It costed 25.000DM!!!









This museum also has an original Concorde and also the Tupolev-144. I even could go into these beautiful airplanes. What an enourmous difference between the super-high tech cockpit of the Concorde and the ultra-low tech cockpit of the Tupolev!








And here's the Mighty German WWII Tiger tank, Germany's answer to the Russian T32. It was very nice, you could control the tracks, turret and the elevation of the barrel with a joystick. With the typical Maybach engine growl in the distance! Beautiful!

I really liked this museum a lot. Well maintained and a lot of information. When you ever come nearby: visit it!

Finishing the chemical plant control system

Here I'm finishing the weigher control system that was part of the Siemsens S5 to ObjectAutomation/ISA-88 Batch control system that I commissioned last week in Heilbronn Germany.

Commissioning chemical plant in Germany

After a (too) long trip with very bad weather (many heavy rain) I arrived late in Heilbronn Germany for commissioning a chemical plant control system upgrade. Fortunately we were still able to test some parts of the production machines in the few hours that were left. Tomorrow we will really start with intensive testing of the system.

Gig at the Splinter music festival

Here we are playing at the Splinter music festival. The daughter of our singer just won a music-constest. She is singing the same song here together with our band.

Flying my Protech Azurro

Here I'm flying my Azurro with assistance of a trainer.......all went ok. Marion took this picture while I was flying.

Impression of our new Band Demo

The Sun 28th April 2009

This is my setup for photographing the sun. An 90mmF10 refractor on EQ2 mount (unguided) with solar filter. Camera used is an Eos400d with remote triggering.










Here's a 1/50sec ISO100 photograph of the Sun, apperently there's not much to be seen......







But after careful investigation I discovered a sunspot!

Snoopy in the garden

Last weekend we let our rabbit run outside in the garden. Here Snoopy is enjoying some spring sunshine!

Flying weekend

This weekend I did a lot of flying, both on Saturday and Sunday. On each day I flew 2x 10min. Here our airplane is standing in the middle of the picture. In the background our flying instructor is flying with another guy like me.

Dropping easter eggs

Here we are dropping easter chocolate eggs......from model aircraft!

Gig at "De Wildeman" Oirschot

Saturday night we played at "De Wildeman" in Oirschot. We had a lot of fun together and the audience liked it a lot.








Crazy Rens.......











Eric.........aka "double bass...."








Rens & Liev....








P & P.....

Computer system installed and online

Just back from a trip to Germany. Installed a new computersystem and put it online.....

Lieveken recording Heel veel Hebben (originally from Grof Geschut)

Patrick is trying an Epiphone Les Paul

Observation night 21th March 2009 Virgo cluster and Coma Berenices

Observation night 21th March 2009: Virgo cluster and Coma Berenices:
Instrument: 200mmF5 newton. location: backyard.

As a test I started with Saturn at 200x: nog bad.
After that M51 at 125x. Visible als 2 bright dots with a weak nebula around it.
M53, bright globular cluster. Periphery more and more stars visible with the 8mm.
Then I tried a weaker galaxy:
M64, visible as a bright center with a big and weak nebula around it in the 8mm.
M3, beautiful globular cluster. It is a joy to view this object. Many starts of about the same magnitude in the 8mm.
Ok, the seeing was acceptable enough to initiate the attack on the Virgo cluster:
M49, weak galaxy. Bright center with a weak nebula around it in the 8mm.
M58, relatively weak galaxy. Bright center with a very weak nebula in the 8mm.
M59, even weaker galaxy. The bright center is just visible. Periphery necessary for the nebula in 8mm.
M60, directly visible galaxy with brighter center. Directly visible in the 8mm.
M61, periphery jsut visible galaxy. Not really sure. Visible as a dot with a slightly more bright center in the 8mm.
M84, galaxy with bright center and weak nebula around it in the 8mm.
M86, galaxy with a nebula that is very big. Only visible periphery in the 8mm.
M88, galaxy without bright center. By looking periphery a very weak nebula is visible in the 8mm.
M89, small galaxy. Visible as a small bright dot. Periphery the nebula becomes slightly bigger in the 8mm.
M90, very wek galaxy, periphery just visible.
Then the biggest achievement:
M91, periphery -just- visible. By far the weakest object of the evening. Doubtful in the 8mm. My first mag. 10+ object ever. And

that from the backyard!
M98, periphery visible as a weak and elongated galaxy. Relatively big. Also very weak, but not as weak as M91. Used 8mm.
M104, Sombrero galaxy: very beatiful edge on. Very bright in the 8mm.
M102, very bright and elongated galaxy. No bright center. Best in 8mm.
After that a few easier ones:
M13, really beautiful and big globula cluster. Back after the winter. Very rich with many stars in the 8mm.
M92, globular cluster that extends very far. Much smaller than M13. Very nice in the 8mm.
After that some beautiful NGC's that were already on my todo list for a long time:
NGC4565, very beautiful edge-on. Bright in the 8mm. Visible as a smear. Fits 8mm fov nicely.
NGC4631, very beautiful and very big edge-on. Does not fit 8mm fov. Therefore used 21mm. Visible as a big thin smear.
NGC4216, almost edge on. Bright center. Best in 8mm.
After that the Leo galaxies:
M65, bright center with a weak nebula around it in the 8mm.
M66, weak galaxy with slightly brighter center. Periphery necessary to see the nebula in the 8mm.
And after that:
M105, M95 and M96 all together in the fov of the 21mm. M105 is relatively weak, the other 2 bright.
This was a nice observation night. I have seen 14 new Messier objects this night!!

Gig at "De Klomp" in Etten-Leur

Last sunday we had to play in a very nice small music cafe in Etten-Leur. We had a lot of fun and good reactions afterwards......It was a joy to play over there.

Here Patrick is layin' it down.











The whole ceiling of the small pub is full with wooden shoes.











This is me when viewing down on my 2 basses......You already see the floor-switchboard of our singer/guitarist. That left me about 30square cm to stand on......









Here the pub-owner is putting on some real rock-stuff!