Halloween Sunspots

The Sun is active again as we can see some sunspots. Two group of sunspots (AR2778& 2779) can be found near the limb of the Sun.

The picture is a combination of two pictures, both with Nikon D7500 and TAL200K f/8.5:

1) Solar film ND5, ISO 500, 1/800s 

2) Solar film ND5 and Solar Continuum filter, ISO 800, 1/80s

Stacking is done with CS4.

Supernova SN2020rcq

UGC 6930 (Uppsala General Catalogue of Galaxies) is part of the M109 group and located in constellation Ursa Major and about 50million ly away from Earth. The galaxy shows an "extra" star which is a supernova (SN2020rcq). The picture was taken with COAST C14 f/11 telescope on Tenerife. Exposure time 120 and no filters. I embedded a picture of UGC6930 from Simbad to compare with the Coast picture.

SSTV ISS

http://ariss-sstv.blogspot.com/

Blog of the SSTV schedule and other related information.

The Making of my Andromeda M31 astropicture

I made a powerpoint presentation about the learnings of the making of my astropicture M31 Andromeda Galaxy. Click at the picture to download the powerpoint presentation.

Update of my Astromical Links

I made an update of my most used websites. Those links can be found on my blog via this link.

New Bright Comet Atlas C/2020 M3

After the great comet Neowise C/2020 F3 this summer there is now good news. We will be seeing again a bright Comet, Atlas C/2020 M3. Not as bright as C/2020 F3 but still worthwhile to get out. It's currently mag 8.5 and increasing. The comet was discovered at magnitude 19 on June 27, 2020, by the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System or ATLAS..

It's currently visible in constellation Lepus and moving toward Orion. For more information see The SkyLive.

VVS Deepsky Dag November 7, 2020 - online via Youtube

This year, the Annual meeting - "VVS Deepsky Dag" - will take place on November 7, 2020. Beside a limited number of fysical attendees, the meeting will be broadcasted via the Youtube channel - see this link 

The agenda is available. There is agood mix of both theoretical as practical aspects. 

Moon-Jupiter-Saturn Close encounter

This evening, the moon close together with Jupiter and Saturn. 

Twin Paradox Minkowski Diagram

A space time diagram or Minkowski diagram made of the Twin Paradox. I used my old fashioned graph paper to draw both "twin" situations.

Left : earth twin "leaving" the rocket twin
Right : earth twin "staying, and the rocket heading away (and returning)
Both believe  the other one is younger as they "see" the other one moving away.

 

Mars at opposition : use of Denoise

 My pictures from Mars at opposition (October 14th) are reworked using Topaz DeNoise AI.

Andromeda M31 5 sessions 244 minutes expoisure

 The Andromeda Galaxy M31 : picture from 5 sessions and total of 244minutes exposure. 

Mars to Opposition

During the night of October 13 to October 14, 2020 Mars came to Opposition. Seeing was moderate but with a couple of good moments. My best pictures are presented below. I added aswell a picture from Mars Mapper.

Setting : ASI ZWO224MC and TAL200K f/8.5 with ADC and Barlow x2. AVI movies 127 fps for 60s. Stacking with AutoStakkert! and 33% of best frames are collected. Final editing using CS4.

Opposition Mars

Last night Mars came to opposition and clouds dissapeared after midnight. Moderate seeing but with some good moments. Not all picteres are edited, but a first impression.

Setting : ZWO224MC and TAL200K f/8.5 with ADC and Barlow x2. 127 frames per second. Stacking with AutoStakkert! and final editing using CS4.

Calsky C'est fini

Unfortunately, the astronomical bible on the web "Calsky" stopped providing their services. This means we need to find our data somewhere else ...

Andromeda Galaxy M31 - Total exposure 244minutes

This picture of the Andromeda Galaxy M31 is the result of a total of 317 individual pictures made in 5 different night sessions:
- 62 x 60s ISO2500

- 63 x 60s ISO4000

- 48 x 60s ISO6400

- 82 x 30s ISO6400

- 62 x30s ISO1250

So total exposure is 244 minutes. All pictures are made with Nikon D7500 and TLAPO80/480 f/6. Pictures with exposure time 60s are made with control software DigiCamControl. Stacking of Nef files using Astro Pixel Processor (APP). The stacked result (stretch - non saturated -Tiff32) was cropped and edited using CS4.

Interesting Documentaries - Documentary Mania

 Sit back and enjoy.... a good documentary.  For that see this link Documentary mania

Tumbling object near NGC7008

When photographing planetary nebula NGC7008, one of pictures showed a tumbling object. As the time was 60s, tumbling time is less then 30s.

Planetary Nebula NGC6894

Planetary Nebula NGC 6894 is located in constellation Cygnus and about 5443ly away from Earth. It was not my intention to observe this nebula as I was searching for another planetary nebula. I must have used a different number... by luck it was also a planetary nebula. On the picture is also a double star NGC6896 and open star cluster IC1315. 

Setting : Nikon D7500 and TLAPO80/480 f/6, ISO3200, lights 16x60s, darks 5x60s. Camera was controlled via software DigiCamControl. Stacking of nef files using APP and final editing and cropping with CS4.

Planetary Nebula NGC7008 or Fetus Nebula

NGC 7008 (Fetus Nebula) is a planetary Nebula located in constellation Cygnus and about 2800ly away from Earth. In the middle of the nebula we can observe the central star (mag 13). According database Simbad two stars, very close to each other and each mag 13 are in the middle of the nebula. It is not clear to me of both or only one is part of NGC 7008.

Setting : Nikon D7500 and TLAPO 80/480 f/6; ISO3200, lights 16x60, darks 5x60. Stacking of raw (nef) data using APP and final editing and cropping with CS4 (tiff to Jpg).

Bow-Tie (Vlinderdas) Nebula NGC40

NGC 40 or Caldwell 2 or Bow-Tie (Vlinderdas) Nebula is a planetary nebula (magnitude 11) locaed in constellation Cepheus and about 3500ly away from Earth. NGC 40 is the first object of Herschel 400-list. 

Setting : Nikon D7500 and TLAPO80/480 f/6. ISO 3200, lights 16x60s, darks 5x60s. Stacking using AstroPixelProcessor (APP) and cropping and final editing with CS4 (Tiff16 to Jpeg). 

Solar Storms : Astronomy Online from American National Museum of History

On line lecture on Solar Storms : October 2nd at 7 PM Brussels time

Join Carter Emmart, the Museum’s director of astrovisualization, and Leila Mays, deputy director of the Community Coordinated Modeling Center at NASA Goddard, to explore how scientists protect astronauts from space weather and why our Sun’s dynamic activity affects human space travel. Bring your questions for our presenters and for Kathryn Whitman and Phil Quinn of NASA Johnson Space Center's Space Radiation Analysis Group (SRAG), and Jon Linker of Predictive Science, Inc., who will be answering your questions live in the chat.

My pictures published in magazine Heelal

I'm proud that two of my pictures : the noctilucent clouds storm of July 5 and Comet Neowise C/2020 F3 are both published in magazine Heelal (Heelal edition september 2020 and Heelal edition oktober 2020)

Gold Messier Certificate

Today I received my Gold Messier Certificate. The certificate was provided by the VVS (Janos Barabas) as a result  of completing the observation of all 110 Messier objects.