M17 Swan Nebula

Sand storm in Tenerife is gone and telescopes are working again. My requests are completed and one of them is the Swan or Omega nebula, Messier M17. Picture taken with COAST C14 f/11 with exposure of 180s. The PNG picture was edited using CS4.

Lecture The Relativistic Quantum World @ Maastricht University

Starting on March 4th, Maastricht University will be providing a lecture series on the relativistic quantum world. In total 10 lectures during 5 evenings will be given and providing insight of the quantum world.

For more details see here. 

Sterrenkijkdagen 2020 : Helios @ Langdorp

De nationale sterrenkijkdag zal plaatsvinden op vrijdag 28 en zaterdag 29 februari. Sterrenvereniging Helios zal aanwezig zijn op zaterdag 29 februari in Langdorp (aan de Demer achter het Wolf café). Vanaf 19h00 zal bij helder weer diverse kijkers opgesteld worden om te kijken naar de maan en andere moois. Vergeet je smartphone niet mee te brengen zodat je zelf een unieke foto van de maan kunt maken.

Zie ook : VVS website
Zie ook : Uit in Vlaanderen

SterrenkundigJaaboek 2020 Royal Observatory of Belgium (PDF)

Het jaarboek 2020 van de Koninklijke Sterrenwacht van Belgie is beschikbaar. Dit Jaarboek heeft tot doel de nodige inlichtingen te verstrekken met aanduidingen voor wie belang stelt in de waarneming van de sterrenkundige verschijnselen. Het boek is te koop of te downloaden in PDF formaat

Zie link naar het jaarboek

Coronal Mass Ejection and Earth's magnetic fields

Illustration of a CME from the Sun’s surface in the direction of Earth. The blue waves around the Earth’s poles represent it's magnetic field lines. The CME and it's magnetic cloud of plasma can extend to 45 million km wide by the time they reach Earth. These CME storms can disrupt communications and navigational equipment, damage satellites, and even cause electrical blackouts; and this is the science of Space Weather.

OpenLearn Astronomy with an online telescope

My second course on OpenLearn from the The Open University : Astronomy with an online telescope. I was able to complete the course succesfully and getting my first badge.

M42 with COAST telescope (RGB, Clear & OIII)

Final compilation of Orion Nebula M42 pictures with COAST C14 f/11 telescope in Tenerife. Settings : 180s Clear filter, 180s RGB and 180s OIII. PNG pictures are edited using CS4. The 4 stars in the center of M42, the Trapezium, is clearly visible.

Whirlpool Galaxy M51 with COAST - Comparison with TAL200K

Picture of Whirlpool Galaxy, Messier M51, with COAST C14 f/11 telescoop in Tenerife. Exposure time 180s without filters.

To compare I added my picture of M51, taken with Nikon D7500 on TAL200K f/8.5 with settings ISO12800 and 18minutes exposure time. Raw data converted to DNG and editing using CS4. The COAST picture format is PNG and final editing aswell with CS4.

Helping Science - Val U Sun

It's always nice to help science. This time it was about calibrating old solar drawings in view of digitazing them.

Orion Nebula with COAST Telescope - Color

A combination of RGB and Clear picture from Orion Nebula, M42, with COAST C14 f/11 telescope on Tenerife.

Orion Nebula with COAST Telescope on Tenerife

Orion Nebula, Messier M42, with COAST Telescope C14 f/11 on Tenerife. This time without filters (Clear) and exposure time of 180s. The picture was edited within telescope.org and the picture was downloaded in png. Final editing with CS4.

Orion Nebula with COAST Telescope

A combination of colored and non colored picture of the Orion Nebula or M45. Picture taken with COAST telescope C14 f/11 on Tenerife.

Orion Nebula with COAST telescope

Some more serieus stuff : The Orion Nebula M42 with COAST C14 f/11 telescope on Tenerife. Exposure time up to 150s. CS4 was used to edit PNG file.

Succesfull Launch Solar Orbiter

At 5h03 this morning, ESA's Solar Orbiter was launch from Cape Canaveral succesfully.

Flame Nebula NGC2024 with COAST

Learning from my first picture M104 with the COAST telescope in Tenerife I was able to edit my second picture, NGC2024 or Flame Nebula. It was more complicated then expected as the nebula is rather faint. Again, RGB pixels were alligned and gamma boost up. DeepSkyStacker was used to convert from Fits to Tiff and final editing using CS4.

M104 Sombrero Galaxy with COAST

The Sombrero Galaxy M104 is my first picture with the COAST telescope in Tenerife. Using the software from Telescope.org it was possible to finetune the picture. After alligning the RGB pixels the gamma range was adjusted. The Fits files was saved and DeepSkyStacker was used to convert the picture to Tiff format. Final editing with CS4.

First picture with COAST telescope on Tenerife

As part of the OpenLearn course I was able to make my first picture using the COAST telescope on Tenerife. This robotoc telescope is located in the Teide telescope parc in Tenerife. It's a 14inch Celestron and the request of pictures happens through the Telescope.org website after registration. My first request was M104 Sombrero galaxy. I used the standard setting with exposure time of 120s and standard RGB. A couple of hours later the sytem confirmed my request and I received my first picture using a remote telescope. I can not compare yet with my TAL200K but picture looks quit sharp, knowing it's almost full moon.
Some learning to do on working with timing,.. and downloading and editing Fits files..

New record for Parker Solar Probe

Nasa's Parker Solar Probe realised it's fourth close approach to the Sun. This fourth encounter resulted in breaking the speedrecord as is now 393044 km/h and the closest distance to the Sun of 18.6 million km (as reference Earth is about 150 million km located from the Sun). As the probe is getting closer, temperature is increasing up to 612°C but equipment is kept cool up to 30°C.

Universiteit van Vlaanderen : Donkere Materie

De Universiteit van Vlaanderen heeft een video gepost rond donkere materie. Prof dr. Dirk Ryckbosch van de universiteit van Gent geeft duiding over wat donkere materie is.

Lecture by Werner Poets at Mira

Selfie with Werner Poets

This evening I attended a lecture by Werner Poets @ Mira (Grimbergen) covering the special theory of relativity.  The lecture started with the explaination of the two postulates : the  speed of light in vacuum is the same for all observers and the laws of physics are the same in all inertial frames of reference when moving at constant speed. 

Starting from this Werner Poets used graphs to explain the theory and ended with the time dilation and length contraction when moving at speeds near the speed of light.

The lecture was sold out and he repeated the lecture after the first one as many people could attend the first one.

This first lecture will have a second part in september discussing the general theory of relativity and black holes;