Comet C/2019 Y4 Atlas

Yesterday evening pictures were taken of Comet C/2019 Y4 Atlas. The comet is almost visible with the naked eye (magnitude 8) and can be seen in constellation Ursa Major.
Picture taken with Nikon D7500 and TLAPO 80/480 f/6. Setting : ISO3200 and 30s. Also a sequence was made of 23minutes. Raw pictures converted to DNG and stacking using DeepSkyStacker with final editing in CS4.

Long exposure of 23minutes

Coming up close approach of Venus and Pleiades M45

Block your agenda : April 3 and 4, 2020; close approach of Venus and Pleiades, the open star cluster M45. This is visible with the naked eye.
On thursday I took the picture below with Venus still south of the open star cluster.

Galaxy M58

Galaxy Messier M58 in constellation Virgo is located a distance of 65 million lightyears away from Earth.
Setting : Nikon D7500 and TAL200K f/8.5; ISO6400 and 24 pictures each 30s exposure. Darks are taken. Raw pictures converted to DNG and stacked using DeepSkyStacker. Final editing with CS4.

The Leo Triplet Galaxies

The Leo Triplet Galaxies consist of M65, M66 and NGC3628 and are located in constellation Leo about 35 million lightyears from Earth.
The picture was taken using Nikon D7500 and TAL200K f/8.5. Setting : 21 x 30s each and ISO6400. Raw data converted inot DNG and stacking using DeepSkyStacker. Final editing with CS4.

First day of Spring

Exactly at 4h30 local time, the first day of spring will start.

Kennedy Space Center & Cape Canaveral Air Force Station

Entrance of Kennedy Space Center

Visiting Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station March 6-8, 2020.

Entrance of Atlantis building with Shuttle Boosters

Saturn 1B rocket on the ground

Mercury-Redstone Rocket - Alan Shepard - first American in Space

In front of Saturn V building complex

In front of incredable Space Shuttle Atlantis

Selfie with Astronaute Heidi Stefanyshyn-Piper

Selfie with Astronaute Wendy Lawrence

My first live rocket launch : Falcon 9 CRS20

Life Falcon 9 CRS20 rocket launch pictures taken with Nikon D7500 and lenses 18-200 and 10-24mm.

Space Complex 40 as seen from Titusville

A couple of seconds before the launch of Falcon 9 CRS20

Incredable bright light a couple of seconds after launching

Close-up after first stage and ignition of second stage.

  For the first time ever I was able see a real live rocket launch. On March 6th, 23h50 local time, a Falcon 9 loaded with a Dragon spacecraft was launched from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral. I observed the launch from Titusville at the Indian river, about 21km from complex 40. Even at this distance the launch was seen perfectly and very bright. The sound of the rocket launch came much later about 1 minute after T-zero.

First Stage Booster landing at Landing Zone 1 'SLC 13'

The first stage booster came back and landed at Space Launch Complex 13, Landing Zone 1. This was seen aswell very easy and very bringt. One day later I could see the landed booster from Space Launch Complex 14.

Booster (right above the trees) from CRS20 Falcon 9 after landing as seen from SLC14

SpaceX Space Launch Complex 40, One day later.