Orion Nebula M42 - Pictures Stacked using DeepSkyStacker

Using DeepSkyStacker to stack pictures from last night of M42 Orion Nebula. Editing was done with CS4.

M42 Orion Nebula

Temperatures as low as -6°C, clear sky but still average seeing. Visual observations of M1, M42, M45, M78, M79, M81, M82. Around 22h00 meteor at 15° above the horizon and in the south East moving in the direction of the south. Photographs made of M1, M42 and IC434.

Misty Weather

Even the fact I can see some stars, the sky is covered with mist. The street lights reflect the light due to the small droplets so badly that it is not possible to make any observations.

The sun today - PST comparison with SDO data

Clear skies so time to observe the sun with PST 40. One big prominence at 11h and smaller ones at 4h and 9h. I made a comparison with data from SDO and the result is shown below. I must say that the comparison is very good. My picture was made afocal using a 8-24mm zoomlens and edited using CS4.

No sunspots but bright sundogs

No sunspots today but due to low and high clouds it was ideal for observing some bright sundogs.

Astronomical Highlights 2016

My Astronomical Highlights of 2016 with the Transit of Mercurius, my first Deepsky Pictures, observing Noctilucent Clouds and the Making of the Moonphases.

The planets with Jupiter and the Transit of Mercurius

My first deepsky pictures M42 en M57

The sun this year

Noctilucent clouds in July  :

Moonphases in December :

Happy Birthday : 4 Year blogging

Celebrating 4 year of blogging ... started on December 23, 2012

Solargraph Failed due to overexposure.

As mentioned earlier, one pinhole camera disappeared a month ago and yesterday I found out that after 6 months exposure my other one did not show much details.
Bad luck but what can we learn from this?
My conclusion of the latter is that the paper was overexposed. This probably because the can (this time a used a piece of a "sewer pipe") wasn't light prove, so the sun could penetrate through the can and did expose the paper.  Instead of exposing the paper via the pinhole.

Why a Red Sky in the Morning?

This morning again a beautiful red sky. But why a red sky? This because of a phenomenon called Rayleigh Scattering. When light travels through a medium with particles smaller (eg. moisture) than the wavelength of light then light will be scattered. The intensity of the scattered light is also dependant of the wavelength (～𝛌-4). For that with blue light having a 2x shorter wavelenght then red light, this means blue light is 16x more scattered then red light. That's the reason why we have a blue sky and not a red... blue is more scattered with having more chance that blue light will hit our eyes.
So now, why a red morning. Ah... this is because in the morning/evening, when the sun is low at the sky, light travels much longer then during the day through the atmosphere. The distacnce can be as even 12x longer then during daytime. So the chance that blue light is fully scattered is very likely and only the red light is available to reach our eyes (so no blue light is left :) )

Start Winter @ 11h44

Winter will start officially today @11h44. At that moment the sun will be directly overhead at the Tropic of Capricorn also known as the Southern Tropic.

Collage of moonphases december 2016

This month I was able to make a collage of the different moonphases. I started beginning of december and ended with the full moon on december 14th. Not every day was cloudfree but.. unfortunately.
This work took me about 779 minutes of which 504 minutes spread over 10days to make 133 pictures (a total of 1.16 Gb), and afterwards about 275 minutes making the final editing and establishing a collage using CS4.

Full Supermoon but not 100% full !

It's full moon today and this morning there are no clouds. So perfect time to make some pictures. It's also the third time this year (Oct, Nov) we can observe a supermoon. Also special today is that the moon is not exactly 100% full. This because the moon is not exactly in front of the sun. You can see this at the picture as some craters are still visible.

One day before full moon

With 98% illumination, the moon is almost 24h away from being "full". Below picture was taken with ISO100 and 1/160s shutterspeed.

Moon - 94%

The entire day was covered with clouds but luckely just before midnight this changed. For half a hour clouds pulled away with almost a clear sky. The moon is illuminated for 94% and thus much brighter then a couple of days ago. I changed settings from ISO200 to ISO100 and kept shutterspeed the same. As the moon is now "bigger" and not fitting into the sensor image, the picture is a composition of two photo's. This was done using CS4.

Moon 76% - Details up to 6km

Even the fact the sky is covered with high clouds, temperature is about 5°C and 100% humidity, the moon is coming through. Even more, details could be observed beyond 6km in diameter.
Currently the moon is illuminated for 76%.

Moon 65% - Copernicus Crater

Some hours without clouds and this plenty of time to observe the moon. The moon is 65% illuminated and in the center it's easy to recognize Copernicus Crater (93km). I made some more pictures using my zoom 8-24mm and installed my camera afocal. 

Low in the south you can also seen Clavius Crater (245km).

Messier Objects - 65% completed

Over the last years I observed 71 out of 110 Messier Objects.  With 65% completed, I still do miss 39 Messier Objects.  I will try to observe those within the next  months/year before taking a new challenge like the Herschel 400. Of which by the way I observed 13/400 :)

Virgo and Sagitarius will be the biggest challenge, so focus as from January onwards. 

Lunar Halo

Weather is not good to do any observations this evening due to high clouds. But because of those high clouds I could observe below lunar halo. Almost a perfect circle of 22° around the moon. This phenomen is also called a winter halo, moon ring or moon halo. 

Moon is halfway to supermoon.

This evening the moon is 55% illuminated and so halfway towards the supermoon on december 14th.
Some remarkable craters can be observed like the bright Plato Crater (109km) in the North.

Get email of my blog.

Do you want to receive emails everytime I post a blog? It's now possible via feedburner. Open my blog http://orionxt12.blogspot.be/ and enter your email adress into the box "subscribe for email". It's that easy:)

The Sun today - Combining PST & TAL picture.

The sun with sunspot AR2615 using Baader Astrosolar on TAL200K.

Using my PST40 I took some pictures in H𝜶 which I combined with the picture taken above. The combination shows both the sunspots as the sunflames in one and same picture. The effect was achieved using CS4.

Moon 44% - Hipparchus Crater

Some high clouds, about -0.5°C and the moon 44% illuminated. In the center you will see Albategnius Crater (114km) and north of it Hipparchus Crater (138km).

Moon 34% with Apollo 11 & 17

Only -1°C and much warmer then yesterday night :)
The moon is now 3° north-east from Mars and 34% illuminated. Some high clouds are visible but this is good enough to make some pictures. This is also the right moment to observe Mare Tranquillitatis with south and north of it the landings of the first and last Apollo mission.

M42 Orion Nebula

Almost -5°C and my Nikon battery is empty, so it was time to quit my observation for this evening. Below is a picture of the Orion Nebula M42 taken with TAL200K and Nikon D60.

Sunspot AR2615

Clear sky and bright sun, showing sunspot AR2615. Picture taken with Nikon D60 on TAL200K and Baader sunfilter for 1/640s ISO200. Editing using CS4.

Moon 16% with names of Craters

Always interesting to find out the names of the craters. During this first quarter we can find the craters of some famous early explorers.

Moon 16% with airplane.

Again a lucky shot when airplane shows up in front of the moon :)

Moon 16% Waxing Crescent

Already -2°C and cold. The moon is low above south-west horizon. Picture taken in direct focus on TAL200K and edited using CS4.

Herschel 400 Presentation A.S.H Polaris

Attending presentation on Herschel 400 by Tom Corstjens which took place at A.S.H Polaris in Herentals. Tom provided with passion insight on how to organize for visual observations of Messier and Herschel 400. A good overview was given but most interested are the drawings and sketches he makes of every observation. A key learning I took away is to take time to observe and keep looking at the object. The longer you look at the object the more you will see :)

Weather Summary November

November 2016 was about 4°C colder than November 2015. I registrated 11 air frost days this month versus 6 last year. Rainfall is comparable with last year, aswell as the wind.

The sun today - Nov 30, 2016

Picture of the sun taken with Coronado PST40 and zoom 24mm - afocal. Editing done with CS4 and comparison with SDO 304.

Almost perfect! Airplane in H𝛂

Temperature this morning was about -8.8°C and the sky is clear with a few clouds high in the sky. So time to make some pictures using my Coronado PST. Unfurtunately no sunflames could be observed but I could take a picture of the sun with an airplane in H𝛂. Almost perfect :)

Startrail above abbey of Averbode

Clear sky this evening but real cold with -2¨C at this moment. The picture shows the abbey of Averbode with it's startrail. Picture is made of 60 photo's each with an exposure of 30s. Stacking was completed using Startrails and modified using CS4.

Moon & Jupiter at sunrise

On the morning of November 25th, both the Moon and Jupiter could be observed 30° above the south-eastern horizon. The Moon is waning crescent and 15% illuminated, Jupiter is seen 3° west of the moon. Picture taken around 7h50 local time.

Reverse colors of double rainbow - Alexander's band - Supernumerary band

Using CS4 to highlight the colors and to enhance the contrast shows the revers order of the colors of the second rainbow. It also shows much better the darkness between the two rainbows, which is called Alexanders dark band. And finally the picture shows also the green band underneath the violet color of the first rainbow which is called a supernumerary band.

Wow a Supernumerary Double Rainbow

Clouds, rain and sun ... the perfect ingredients for a perfect rainbow. Above Aarschot I took below pictures which not only show a perfect double rainbow but a supernumerary double rainbow.

According literature a supernumerary rainbow is defined when below the first rainbow more colors are seen beyond the normal colors. As seen on the pictures a "white" band is seen below the violet color which when enlarged consist of faint colors of green and violet. So we see from the outside to the inside red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet and then green and violet.

As I was not sure and did ask for a second opinion to Frank Deboosere, our national weatherman and amateur astronomer. And he confirmed the supernumerary band aswell.