Nightscapes of Orion

Clouds play a nice role of below nightscape with constellation Orion.

22° Halo around the Moon

It's still very cold outside but the tiny clouds high up in the sky are responsible for a beautiful 22° Halo around the Moon.

Whirlpool M51a and M51b

NGC5194 or M51a and NGC5195 or M51b are interacting galaxy pairs located about 25 million lightyears away. The galaxy pairs can be seen in the constellation Canes Venatici (hunting dogs).
The pictures are taken using TAL200K with Nikon D7500. Manual stacking of 10 pictures and editing using CS4.

Whirlpool Galaxy M51

Stacking 4 pictures of 30s with different ISO values of M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy. Final editing done using CS4. Pictures were taken on Feb 23, 2018 (-4°C).

M82 Galaxy

Galaxy M82 (in Ursa Mayor) with TAL200K and Nikon D7500. Editing using CS4, single shot.

Whirlpool Galaxy M51

Whirlpool Galaxy taken with TAL200K and NikonD7500 on Friday Feb. 23, 2018. Single shot 30s and editing using CS4.

Orion Nebula M42 with TAL200K

Temperatures around -4°C, clear sky (Moon First Quarter) and very good seeing provides bright pictures of the Orion Nebula M42. Pictures are taken with Nikon D7500 on TAL200K.Stacking using CS4 of 4 pictures, all 30s but different ISO values (800-3200). 

It's over

With 4 days of clear skies, clouds took over this evening.

Startrail above Windmill at Langdorp

Very clear sky this evening and I made some time to withstand the cold to make a startrail. As a scene I used the windmill located in Langdorp, direction north. I took some 200 pictures, all in Jpeg, and stacked those using startrail.de.
Standing outsite in an open field with apparent temperatures of -4°C are always a challenge. But luckily a got visit from a Helios collegue which made time passing by much faster. Thx Patrick :)

Planet Uranus

This evening, planet Uranus is constellation Pisces. Picture taken using refractor TLAPO480/80 f/6. Editing done using CS4.

Orion Nebula M42 and M43 in OIII

This evening I made some pictures of M42 and M43 using an OIII filter. Pictures where stacked and editing using CS4.

Running Man Nebula NGC 1977 with M42 and M43

Observation of the Running Man Nebula NGC 1977, Orion Nebula NGC 1976 M42 and de Mairan’s Nebula NGC 1982 M43. All in one picture, taken with Nikon D7500 and TLAPO480/80. Limited editing using CS4.

Smiley in the Sky

Beautiful  upside-down rainbow or circumzenithal arc located "above" the Sun. This halo was almost at the zenith of the sky and bright enough to see with the naked eye. 

What's happening with the Camera Industry?

Overview of the Camera Industry year by year. Interesting facts of the total camera market aswell as the significant drop over the last years.

Nikon D7500 Temperature effect on ISO and Noise

Picture below shows the impact of temperture on noise levels for different ISO values.
The colder, the less noise, as we all know :)

Morning Sky with Jupiter and Mars

Again a very clear sky this morning with Jupiter and Mars stealing the show.

Explored setting of the camera and decreased shuttertime to 8 seconds and increased ISO level up to ISO 3200. Stars are better visible and more bright. Above picture is not RAW but started from Jpg.

The Power of Pixels

I keep being impressed on the Power of Pixels. My first DSLR Nikon D60 had 10.9Mp, My Nikon D7500 has 20.9Mp. Even though the sensor of Nikon D60 is 4% bigger then Nikon D7500; the latter one has a pixel density twice as big. I know, the difference is 9 years between the two camera's and technically this difference is huge. In that, the D60 is equiped with a CCD chip and the D7500 with a CMOS chip. Processing the picture after once it's shot, takes no time to store and to show. It took almost 50s for the D60 (Time = 30s)
But the most impressive are the results of the picture... everytime I'm amazed.

Orion and Orion Nebula M42

Big picture taken with 27mm lens, insert with TLAPO80/480 f/6.

Lightpollution and the effects of the City Lights Off

Orion at the sky with City Lights OFF

What is the effect of lightpollution and when a city agrees to put the lights OFF as from midnight. See for comparison the two pictures both showing Orion above the southern horizon, one before and one after midnight. Thanks to the City of Scherpenheuvel-Zichem.

Orion at the sky with City Light ON

Beautiful Sunrise

After a cloudness night a beautiful sunrise @ Langdorp. Settings f/10 27mm ISO250 1/250s.

Jupiter, Mars and Vesta in the morning sky

Beautifull sky this morning with a couple of bright planets above the south-eastern horizon. Jupiter and Mars arising before sunrise and Vesta can be seen using a small scope.

Winterconstellation Orion

It's freezing outside and Orion is shining in the South.

M41 and Orion Nebula M42 withTLAPO804

Messier M42 observed with TLAPO804 and single shot picture - editing completed using CS4.

Messier M41, low above the southern horizon.

Flame Nebula in Orion

This evening I was able to take picture of the Flame Nebula in Orion. The nebula registrated as NGC2024 was observed using my TLAPO80/480. The picture is a single shot of 60s and editing using CS4. If you look very good, you will also recognize the Horsehead nebula.

Bright Sunspot AR2699 Compared with SIDC Drawing

The best contrast and best sharpness was achieved at ISO100 and 1/320s and after editing using CS4. Enlarging the sunspot area gives the result below.

Enlarged & Mirroded

Drawing made by SIDC

Airplane with Sunspot AR2699

Lucky shot when airplane shows up in front of the Sundisk during my observation of Sunspot AR2699.

Sun with Sundog

Bright Sundog this afternoon @Averbode. Picture taken with Iphone 6

Sun after snow

Yesterday it was snowing but this afternoon clear sky with a beautiful Sun and Sunspots. Meaning I'm installing my scope with Baader filter.

Nikon D7500 ISO Noise

Pictures taken with Nikon D7500 in RAW, with cap, shutter speed 10s and different ISO levels. With gamma levels put to the most extreem (to zero) we can see noise showing up as from ISO 6400. Also other reviews show noise coming up around ISO 6400.

Dynamic range drops significantly as from ISO 51200 but EV levels are below 6.  ISO 12800 has EV level 6.6 which is exactly 50% of the max. EV level (ISO50).

My picture of Orion on the Cover Page

My picture of Orion, taken earlier this week, was choosen to be on the cover of the facebook page "Passie voor Fotografie". Nice recognition.

Moon, Mars & Vesta

This morning the sky was partly clear with some high clouds. The Moon was 35% illuminated with Mars and Jupiter aside. The picture below shows the Moon, Mars and also Vesta. Editing done using CS4.

Nightscape Exercise

Windmill by Night with in the back Ursa Major. Picture taken in Diest and limited editing using CS4.

Conctellation Orion taken in the middle of the City Diest. 

Coldest night so far

With -8,6 C the coldest night so far this year @ Averbode

Falcon Heavy Launch

Wow, what an amazing launch test yesterday of the Space x F9H. On Tuesday, Feb. 6th at 9:45 PM, Falcon Heavy successfully lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Falcon Heavy is the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two, with the ability to lift into orbit nearly 64 metric tons. To give you an idea : the rocket realized the speed of sound 1 minuut after lift off ... 

But for me the most impressive moment was for sure the landing of the two boosters, simultaneously, only 8 minutes after lift off. 

As I watched the launch together with 20 other classmates on a big screen in Antwerp, I realized everbody was clapping their hands once the boosters touched ground. So I was not the only one being impressed :)

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

Sterrenkijkdagen op 23 en 24 Februari

Op vrijdag 23 en zaterdag 24 februari 2018 kan je op meer dan 25 plaatsen in Vlaanderen ‘s avonds gaan kijken naar de Maan en de sterren. Sterrenwachten en amateur-astronomen zetten die dagen op de verschillende waarnemingsplaatsen hun telescopen buiten, waardoor je die avond de Maan en de sterren van dichtbij kan bewonderen.

Wil je weten waar je in Vlaanderen kunt gaan kijken, klik hier voor een overzichtskaartje.

De afdeling Helios zal op zaterdag 24 februari vanaf 19h00 aanwezig zijn te Langdorp (Wolfs café Langdorpsesteenweg 297, 3201 Langdorp).