Selfie with Dr Thierry Pauwels - Minor Planets

During the celebration of 50y Aquila I took the opportunity the make a selfie with the Belgian astronomer and >100 minor planet discoverer Dr. Thierry Pauwels.

Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan Atlas October 25

A combination of clear and cloudy skies. I did set up my Star Adventurer 2i with Nikon D7500 but Snap connection failed again. I really need to solve this .. maybe getting a complete new snap connector. 

Next to this I set up my EQAZ6 with TLAPO80/480 and ASI2600. Polar allignement was "excellent" and I used sharpcap to capture images. Increasing the exposure time resulted in an error. Switching over to N.I.N.A. wasn't successful either. Finally, I switched over to ASIStudio and found out that ASI2600 power was disconnected. I could fix this but in the meantime the Comet was about 5° above the horizon. 

Some images shot are posted below; I'm still seeing the a faint anti-tail, the huge dusttail but no plasmatail. I made some images using my OIII filter; no more details vissible. 

Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan Atlas October 22

Clouds dissapeared for a half hour, enough to take some images of comet C/2023 A3 TsushinShan Atlas. The comet still has a anti-tail but under a bigger angle.

Image were taken with Nikon D7500 on my Star Adventurer 2i mount. Total integration time was 340s (17x20s).

Stacking was done using APP and final editing with CS4 en DeNoise AI.

Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-Atlas stacked with APP 2.0.0. beta 29

I reworked my images of the Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan Atlas using the beta 29 version of APP 2.0.0.

 

My picture of Lunar Occultation of Saturn published in Heelal

My picture and article of the Lunar occultation of Saturn are published in the astronomical magazine Heelal.

This is the link to my article on my blog.

Comet A3 Tsuchinshan Atlas Stacked

Stacking of 23 images with APP. The anti-tail is becoming more visible after stacking.

Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan Atlas with anti tail

Yesterday evening I planned my trip after investigating the weather forecast using different models. Only two of the models forecasted the same weather : alaro and meteoblue. West of Brussels was the best chance of having a clear sky. This morning weather forecast changed but at noon conditions became better again. So I took my chance a drove to Denderleeuw were I met with my colleague Walter. After a drink and a small snack we drove south towards Nederhasselt, near Ninove. 

In an open field with a 270° view and no clouds this was our chance to see Comet C/2023 Tsuchinshan Atlas. Only at UT17h43 we could spot the comet using my camera. As from then, it went better and better and we were able to see the comet with the naked eye and a tail of 20°. Using the camera the anti tail was visible aswell. 

It was worth doing the trip and both were very satisfied!

Nightscape with Venus

Nightscape with Venus. The objective was to find the Comet A3 but without any result. Venus was bright a enough and with the trees in front a beautiful nightscape. 

 

Lecture Thomas Hertog - On the origin of time.

Together with Helios colleague Walter we went for the first time to Tabloo in Dessel; which is in the backyard of the Graspop Metal Festival area. This rather new visitor center is the visitor and meeting centre in dessel about radioactivity, radioactive waste management and research into nuclear applications. Thomas Hertog took us on a whirling space journey. In between the black holes and the cosmic holograms, he also tells about his special friendship with Stephen Hawking, with whom he worked on an innovative theory about the origin of the universe.

Selfie with Thomas Hertog

Selfie with Jean-Marie and Walter