Weather Summary for August

Higher temperatures and less rain compared with last year August.

Gnomonics or the art and design of sundials

As many things also the art, design and the science of sundials (which is being described as gnomonics) can be exciting. 

So when visiting next time a city, town, ... make sure to look around and have an eye for sundials. 

Chicago §USA) - Adler Planetarium

Salzburg (Austria) - Marketplace

Izegem (B) - Marketplace

Barcelona (Spain) - Montjuic Castle

Rovinj (Croatia) - Market place with fontain

Finally my first pictures (M13 & M57) with AZ-EQ6 tracking

It took some time but after reading, looking at youtube video's and visiting the Star party in Ieper last friday, I was able to have a better and stable alignment.

In short I completed following steps of my AZ-EQ6 mount :
1) setting the mount stable and balanced using the bubble of the mount
2) setting the home position - both RA and Dec
3) alignment of the polarstar within the polarscope
4) 3-star alignment using the Synscan of the mount

Visible "goto" observation showed good results with the object in field of focus. Tracking was set and ready to make my first pictures with "long" exposures up to 30s.

Personally I'm very happy about the result of both M57 and M13.

Bright Iridium Flare

Seeing was not good but enough to see a bright Iridium flare. This time it was Iridium 81 with a mag -6.5. Picture was edited using CS4.

Visual Observation with TAL 200K a Klevtsov-Cassegrain telescoop

For a couple of months I'm have now for loan a TAL200K. This is a Klevtsov-Cassegrain type telescoop and the focusser was changed with a much rigour 2" type. This made it possible to make pictures using my DSLR camera having a 55mm focal point. However, for visual use it was needed to make changes. And only today I found out some easy adjustments using an 2" extension tuber from Orion. And the results are magnificent ... Saturnus, M31, M13, M48,...

Clear Sky - Moon - Iridium Flare

Finally, some great weather with open sky. Probably not only this evening but also the next days.
So, time to observe and taking out my Dobson XT12. Observing M13, M92, M31, M110, M57 and Saturnus. Taking pictures of the moon, an Iridium flare and the summer triangle. And of course lucky to see two nice and bright meteors.

Special Clock's in Venice - Italy

Some special and beautiful clocks in Venice - Italy.
Above the entrance of the church of San Giacomo di Rialto you can find a clock with 24 in stead of 12 hours. The clock was build in the 15th century.

At the Piazza San Marco the St Mark's Clocktower or Torre Dell' Oroloshows a beautifull astronomical clock. Showing moon phases, and also a 24 timing (in stead of 12).

See also that "4" is put as IIII and not as IV