My book review "De olifant in het universum" published in Magazine Heelal

 

My book review "De olifant in het universum" is published in magazine Heelal (edition 67, number 12, december 2022) page 35.

See also my previous post on this book via this link. 

Selfie with the author Govert Schilling

IFTTT replaces Feedburner: AstroPage Pascal Hilkens

Recently I received questions on why people are not receiving my Blogger posts via email. In the past this proces was done through Feedburner but Google stopt supporting this software. I found an alternative with IFTTT - If This Than That. All subscriptions from feedburner are moved to IFTT and an email is generated from Twieter2020@gmail.com.

Lunar Occultation of Mars with Clouds

A lot of clouds before, during and after the Lunar Occultation of Mars. But still I was able to make some pictures a couple of minutes before the Lunar Occultation.

US Postal James Webb Space Telescope Stamps

Today I received 20 stamps from the US Postal service. With the release of this vibrant stamp, the U.S. Postal Service celebrates NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope as it continues its epic mission to reveal the cosmos as never seen before.

“When anyone who uses these stamps looks at this telescope, I want them to see what I see — its incredible potential to reveal new and unexpected discoveries that help us understand the origins of the universe, and our place in it,” Robert D. Cabana, NASA associate administrator and former astronaut said. “This telescope is the largest international space science program in U.S. history, and I can’t wait to see the scientific breakthroughs it will enable in astronomy.”

Stamp Artwork

The image on the stamp is an artist’s digitally created depiction of the telescope against a dazzling starscape. Its 18 gold-coated mirror segments — hexagons that combine to form its 21-foot-wide primary mirror—can pick up faint heat waves representing the universe’s first accessible starlight from billions of light-years away. Opposite, supported by three struts, is the secondary mirror. Below are the telescope’s solar shield, computers, control machinery, and the solar array that provides power.

The words “Webb Space Telescope” appear in white along the bottom edge of the stamp. “USA/FOREVER” runs vertically up the left-hand edge. In the selvage, at top, “James Webb Space Telescope” is printed in gold against the darkness of space, with an image of a star in a gap between the title’s last two words. Additional stars and galaxies appear in the background. This image was taken to confirm the perfect alignment of the telescope’s mirrors.

Art director Derry Noyes was the designer for the stamp project using existing art by James Vaughan and an image provided by NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute.

Mars with UV-IR blocker and bandpass filter IR742

 

Imaging Mars on Friday, November 25, 2022. My first time use of an UV-IR blocker together with my ASI224MC color camera. The white polar cap is now good visible, which was not the case during my previous imaging sessions. This could confirm that I was imaging in IR and polluting it with visual light. 

Next to this, I used also my new bandpass filter IR742 for the first time. The result is an mono picture with some great details. 

Setting: TAL200K f/8.5, ASI224MC, Barlow x2, ADC
Filters: IR/UV blocker and IR742nm

Software: SharpCap 4, AS3!, CS4, DeNoise AI

BlueWalker 3 - Estimate Magnitude 1

Observing satellite BlueWalker together with SeaSat1. Estimating magnitute around 1. 

Satelliet BlueWalker 3 is a prototype satellite for AST & Science's SpaceMobile mobile communications constellation. The satellite will be to test AST & Science's patented technologies for connecting to cellphones in a space environment for their planned SpaceMobile constellation. The 1.5 ton satellite will deploy a 10 m diameter phased array antenna with 64 m2 area consisting of numerous identical sub-antenna modules to connect directly to standard mobile phones.
It is a prototype for the larger operational BlueBird satellites. The first five BlueBird satellites will be similar to BlueWalker 3, while the remaining will be larger.

Mars and Infrared

 

My picture of Mars, earlier this week, is made using my ASI224MC camera. The ASI224MC, is a color camera with some good respons in the near infrared. As I did not use an IR/UV blocker  the picture is an IR picture polluted with visual light -see also article "why you should use an IR cut filter with a  color camera". The color of my Mars picture is reddish/pink which is not a realistic color. I saw different pictures of Mars from other amateurs which are using an IR/UV blocking filter. Threrofor I ordered an IR/UV blocker  with the following properties.

On top of this I will purchase two IR bandpass filters: 642 and 742nm IR bandpass filters. Below is a graph showing the IR bandpass and the sensitivity of the ASI224MC camera.

RGB lines represent the sensitivity of ASI224MC
642, 742 and 807 are graphs of the IR bandpass filter.

The vertical lines are emission lines as a reference eg. H-alpha, OIII, Na, Hg

The grey line in the back is a typical curve of an astrosensor.