Reading stuff

Learning and reading about astronomy can be fun. Starting to understand some of dynamics of the big cosmos can help you to even more enjoy the evening sky. See some of my recommendations reading material.

My Library  

English books

Philip's Complete Guide to STARGAZING, Robin Scagell, 2006

Sky & Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas, Roger W. Sinnott, 2006

Deep Sky Companions The Messier Obkects, Stephen James O'Meara, 1998

Atlas of the Messier Objects Highlights of the deep sky, Ronald Stroyan, 2008

The Cosmic Gallery, Gilis Sparrow, 2013

A guide to the stars, constellations and planets, Antonin Rukl, 2000

The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking, 2010

From Quarks to the Cosmos, Leon, M. Lederman, 2000

Dutch books

De kosmisch symfonie, Brian Greene, 2001

Het universum, Stephen Hawking, 2001

Het heelal, Stephen Hawking, 1989

Sterren en planeten, Robin Kerrod, 1979

Astronomie, Inleiding in de sterrenkunde

Basiscursus Sterrenkunde Deel 1& 2, Urania, 2008

Oregon Scientific WMR 200

Today I received my new weather station from oregon Scientific. I finally made my choice and ordered the WMR 200 with touch screen display, wind, rain, temperature gauges and solar panel. Choosing for oregon was not easy. First, some web sites have made references about WMR 200 not meeting the intentions and having some problems. Looking at other weather systems from other manufacturers are usualy, when you look further, as good, or as bad; it's the way you look at it. From a cost perspective the pro weatherstation are not that cheap and for some, like the Davis one - not everything is included within the price. My decission however was mainly driven by the fact I currently have a basic weatherstation from oregon without any problem uptill now. So for this reason, price/quality and the fact that other system's references are not statistical better, I choose to buy this WMR 200 system.
Now that I knew what to buy, next question is where to buy. For me the best deal at the moment was amazon.fr but the info wasn't clear the WMR package was full included. For that reason the order was placed with amazon.de. The package was delivered 4 days after ordering at my neighbours home .... no one did sign off.  So far so good and the next days I will start to unpack and install my new weather station.

Using red filter

Picture taken from my backyard of the sun with clouds. I used my Nikon D60 and a selfmade red filter. Picture cropped using CS4 without any further modification.

Evening sky above flanders

Startrail Abbey of Averbode

Startrail with the Abbey of Averbode in the front.  On the right corner you can recognize Orion and Sirius is the bright star on the mid right. Picture was taken with a Nikon D60 using 30 frames each 30s. Picture stacked with Startrail and modified using Photoshop CS4.

Small Moon

The Moon this evening in the west,

Supernova in M82

A few days ago astronomers observed a supernova in M82. M82 is a "nearby" galaxy and located within Ursa Major. The supernova, an exploding star, is currently as bright as magnitude 11 and could become more bright the next few days.