Workshop Nightscapes

The next three weeks I will be attending the Workshop Nightscapes. This 3-day workshop is organized by Urania in Hove (Antwerp). The whole idea is to explain how to make astropictures using a DSLR camera with only use of a tripod. This interactive and practical workshop hopefully will provide some tips and tricks to make nice and easy nightscapes.

Lights-out picture during classroom training

As a start focus was given on the concepts of ISO, Diaphragm (Aperture) and Shuttertime. At the end of the workshop a real hometask was given ... :)

Interesting fact.... for every Nikon camera.. 3 Canon camera's.

The Orion Nebula M42

Picture of The Orion Nebula M42 taken with Nikon D7500 and Refractor TS TLAPO80/480 f/6 ISO1600 single shot of 30s. Limited editing using CS4.

The Pleiades - M45

Clear sky and temperature around -1°C. Ideal to observe the Pleiades (Messier M45) high in the sky. Picture taken with Nikon D7500 and Refractor TS TLAPO 80/480 f/6 and editing using CS4.

Weatherforecast Clear Sky

It seems that from Monday to Tuesday it will be a clear sky with negative temperatures and a relative humidity below 100%. See also MeteoBlue.com

Presentation of The Unity of the Universe available now

The presentation by Prof. Ed van den Heuvel (see previous on my blog Here) on the Unity of the Universe in available now. This presentation was given as part of the Studium Generale Lecture Series at the University of Maastricht. 

Download the presentation Here. 

SIDC Lectures 07 available now!

Lecture 7 of the SIDC series of Lectures on Basic Solar Physics is out now. It is expected that SIDC will release 13 Lectures on the same topics and according to their planning this is planned for the next 3 months. The video's are available via the Youtube channel and can be seen via this link.

These Lectures are very interesting and provide you all the Basics (and more) you ever wanted to know about the Sun and how it all works. Special thanks to the Royal Observatory of Belgium.

Vesta in the morning sky

The next month's the asteroid Vesta, the second largest asteroid of the asteroid belt, is visible at the morning sky. A binocular or small telescoop is enough to observe Vesta. I found some interesting moments to observe Vesta like NGC or Messier objects :

February 4th : Vesta near phi Ophiuchus (see chart below) and Mars
March 6th : Vesta near NGC 6356
April 3rd : Vesta near NGC 6507
May 24th : Vesta near M24
June 15th : Vesta near M23
June 23rd : Vesta near NGC 6440

Vesta near phi Ophiuchus in the morning of feb 4th - source Stellarium