I'm testing 2 control brand new control systems each consisting of a computer- and controlpanel and a thyristorpanel for controlling high temperature sintering kilns.
Here is a detail view of a computer- and controlpanel with on the left side the VME process control computer system and on the right various relays, power supplies and other switching gear.
This weekend we made a nice walk in the woods south of Reusel, very close to the Belgian border. It is an area where a lot of smuggling had taken place in the 50-60's.......
In the woods you see a few of those border-marking poles. It marks the border between the Netherlands and Belgium.
Last week I calibrated temperature measurements inside some steel hardening furnaces.........
This year we decided to go to a real big carnavalshop for some nice outfits. After googling on the internet we quickly found "Der Carnevalswiert" in Heerlen. It was really nice, and the biggest carnaval shop I ever saw in my life. The best thing is that they have all outfits in all sizes, you can even dress up the whole familiy the same way, because many outfits also have a "children" version.
Here's the 17P/Holmes comet, it is passing the earth now and is very big. It just fits my eos400d sensor. The bright star is Mirfak in the constellation Perseus.
And M42 and M43, the Orion nebula (even visible to the naked eye on clear nights). It is a cloud with many very young stars 1600 lightyears distance from us.
The good old Tektronix TDS5032B oscilloscope I used for years is going out of production, and will be replaced by the new DPO4000. Had an enormous amount of compatibility problems, and a lot of misreadings......but it is starting to work better step-by-step....
This is a great dish for when you've got mates coming round as it's easy to make and looks fantastic. The wild boar salami tastes great, and as well as cooking with it you can use it in sandwiches.
Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/gas 5.
Heat the olive oil in a frying pan, and fry half the salami until quite crisp. Add the onion and garlic and cook slowly until the onion is soft. Add the balsamic vinegar, chopped tomatoes, crème fraîche and basil. Mix together, season to taste, and simmer for a few minutes.
Cook the rigatoni according to the packet instructions until 'al dente'. Drain, and drizzle over a little olive oil and seasoning. Tip into a baking dish and pour over the sauce.
Lay the mozzarella over the top with the rest of the salami. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes until golden. Delicious.
• a good glug of extra virgin olive oil
• ½ a wild boar salami, sliced (or use Napoli salami)
• 1 red onion, peeled and sliced
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and sliced
• 4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 3 tablespoons crème fraîche
• a large bunch of fresh basil, leaves picked and chopped
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 300g rigatoni
• a ball of buffalo mozzarella, sliced
After riding it in very bad weather the last weeks my VFR was very very dirty. It was a lot of work and took the whole saturdayafternoon, but it is clean again................Next week it will start to freeze again (icy roads risk) and then I will put it in the shed for its wintersleep....
At last, after a very long search I found the M33/NGC598 (spiral galaxy) yesterday. It is also called the triangle nebula, magn. 5.7, in Triangulum, under Andromeda. It is 3.000.000 lightyears away from us. From yellow star Beta Andromeda up to M31 is the same distance as towards M33, but then you have to go down. This is the most far away deepsky object that is visible with the naked eye. It was -very faintly- visible at 40x. But it has to be very dark, which is not the case in my light-polluted backyard.This is how I found it: Put scope on tip of the triangle (alpha Triangulum), on the sides there are 2 lines with 2 stars, they point where to go, then to small triangle (with star sao74921), it points to the correct direction, then slightly bigger triangle (star HR485) and then via the line (with star HD10133) towards M33, note that it has another triangle (with star HD9444) nearby. It was only very faintly visible on 40x in the 200mm F/5 newton. It will definately not be visible in the 90mmF10 refractor. But I know now how to find it, so next time I will make some pictures.
The last weeks there are many clouds in the evening, and also a big chance for rain. So carrying in/out the big 200mm Newton is a lot of work. I decided to put the 90mm F10 guidescope on my Gitzo photo mount, and it works perfectly. This evening, with even many clouds, was a fruitful night out. I saw M31 (andromeda nebula), M45 (pleiades), comet 17P/holmes, mars, M29 (open star cluster in cygnus), M57 (planetary nebula in Lyra, very very faint), m43 (large nebula in Orion), as well as the Alcor/Mizar double star in Ursa Major (big bear) and Beta Cygni, a double star in Cygnus (swan). So that's not bad for a refractor evening. Makes me think back of the times when I was young and was out there with the borrowed JWG 60mm telescope of my nephew. With this 90mm refractor I can see a lot more however, but not as much as with the 200mm Newton.
It was a nice day for a walk, we haven't been a while to the "dunes", so that's where we decided to go.
It is called "the dunes" here because there's a lot of sand, it is very desolate and more like a desert....... but still some trees manage to survive over here..
This is how it's like in the 'dunes'......since many people walk here with their dogs you see a lot of footsteps............
Yesterday evening I was searching for NGC1491, but at a sudden moment I caught a "strange" nebula in my 10x50 binoculars. I aimed the scope and saw this (strange) picture. After first realizing it was something special I found on the internet that it is comet 17P/Holmes.
Look for a bright "star" in the east, in the consellation Perseus. It is sitting left of the large cluster of stars in Perseus.
And here you see a detail of the upgraded control computer. The only thing that broke down was the original PC, so we needed to replace it. The only thing they had was an old laptop, but the whole thing is running ok now.
I had a nice cookie&cream Herbalife shake, ready to get going!!
And then with a real British taxi (the best accessable in the world) to Broughton.
