Installation of new 7micron slit in Sol'Ex

I installed a new slit (second generation) in my Sol'Ex Pro version. This slit has two positions, 7 and 10micron.The 7 micron position was used. The slit support was 3D printed by a Johan (Helios colleague) and all fit well. Some advantages using the new 7 micron slit results in increasing

• the resolving power R of the SOl'Ex from 36.000 to 46.000, an increase of 27%  (using ZWO678MM camera)
• the spectral resolution from 0,18 to 0,14 angstrom for H-alpha; an increase of 22%

The "height" of the slit is now 6mm (before 4,5mm) which makes it possible to image the Sundisk using both my TLAPO80/480 f/6 with ZWO678MM camera.

All information of the second generation slit can be found in the following document from Christian Buil (https://buil.astrosurf.com/starex/slit_solex_gen2.pdf)

See specifications of the 7 micron slit: https://www.shelyak.com/produit/fente-solex-sunscan-2-positions/

 

Chart of Nuclides

I used to have a chart of Nuclides but can't find it any more :(
On line some interesting links to nuclides websites:

https://www-nds.iaea.org/relnsd/vcharthtml/VChartHTML.html

https://www.nndc.bnl.gov/nudat3/

To buy a chart of nuclides, choose the one from Karlsruhe Nuclide Chart via https://nuklid.shop/

At the Tabloo Expoo a Nuclide chart was build in "glass" cubes with additional LED lights.  The X-Y axes are number of Protons and Neutrons, the vertical axe is Energy. The lower, the cubes, the more stable the isotope is. The lowest of all is iron - Fe.

Visiting Tabloo Dessel

Together with Helios Astronomy Club I visited Tabloo Expoo in Dessel (B). Tabloo is the brand-new visitor and meeting centre in Dessel about radioactivity, the management of radioactive waste and research into nuclear applications.

My Blog Statistics 2024

My Blog Statistics 2024:

A total of 134 blogposts and more then 45.000 visitors this year. This brings the total blogposts to almost 2150 and total visitors to 188.000.

Selfie compilation

My selfie compilation so far. A total of 52 selfies with astronauts, scientists, field experts and a Nobelprice winner. 

Astronomical Highlights 2024

Again an interesting astronomical year "2024" with some amazing "wow" moments and again great learnings. At home clouds and rain had an impact on my deepsky imaging. But still ...I had to limit the list but these are my astronomical highlights:

#1 Amazing Northern Light show above my home, first time ever 

#2 Sol'Ex presentations, Sol'Ex images and attending ROS in Serbannes

#3 Huge sunspot 3664 which was also published in STCE magazine

#4 Houston Space Center 

#5 Imaging Milky Way in Big Bend Dark Park (bortle 1) 

#6 Visiting Gravitational Wave Centrum LIGO @Livingstone

#7 Occultation of Saturn by Moon

#8 Comet C/2023 A3 Tsushinshan-Atlas

#9 Noctilucent Clouds

#10 Halo's around Sun and Moon

#11 Nightscape Venus and Mercury

#12 Solar Eclips Kerrville-Texas April 8, 2024

#13 Reworked image of Solar Eclipse August 21, 2017 using Larson-Sekanina filter

Horsehead and Flame Nebula reworked using Starnet++

I followed a lecture on postprocessing of deepsky images by Astronomy club Altair (Sint-Truiden). The learning I took away was to remove the stars and edit both the nebula and star image seperate. Once completed combine both images again.

I used starnet++ to remove the stars and editing was done using CS4 and DeNoise AI. The result is better as my stars aren't that big any more compared with the nebula.