ISS Crossing Sun's Disk

Beginning this week I got an automatic email from CalSky mentioning that during the week the ISS will be crossing the Sun's disk of which the centerline was about 800m from my home. The max. distance the ISS is still on the disk, is about 1,3km from the centerline based on my earlier calculations. So I decided to do the set up from my backyard.
Set up used was my refractor TS/TLAPO 80/480 f/6 with ASI224MC and Baader ND5 Solarfilm.
Frames are set 15 per second usng SharpCap capturing software. Capturing started 1 minute before crossing. During capturing I could not see any crossing of the ISS.
I used AutoStakkert to look into each frame in order to find out of the ISS was captured. Only one frame showed the ISS. The ones before and after did not captured the ISS. Not sure why, could be that ISS is considered as bad frames and was kicked out. For that I need to do some more investigation.

So the result is shown below (frame #1646) and the good news... it's on the picture. The bad news... I have greater expectations :)

Sun H-Alpha SolarMax 3

My first try-out using my CMOS camera ASI224MC on SolarMax 3. Some trial and error was done to have the correct double stacking setting and durng the same time camera settings are adjusted.
SharpCap software was used to capture the sun for about 2 minutes and almost 1000 frames. Stacking completed with AutoStakkert and final editing using CS4.
The pictures shows some beautiful prominences and filaments and also the granulation. I'm really satisfied with this picture of the sun and see even more posibilities with this set up.

Saturn TAL200K ASI224MC

Some more results of Saturn around opposition. Picture taken with TAL200K, ASI224MC and barlowx2. Sharpcap is used as capture software and 120s timing was set. Files are RAW16 SER profile and Stacking with AutoStakkert. Final editing in CS4. In below picture color was kept.

Saturn at Opposition

Today, Saturn lies opposite to the Sun. This is the best moment to observe Saturn and Saturn can be seen in the constellation Sagittarius. Not only is Saturn the entire night visible it appears as its brightest and largest. This optimal positioning occurs when Saturn is almost directly opposite the Sun in the sky. At around the same time that Saturn passes opposition, it also makes its closest approach to the Earth.

Below is a picture from two days ago, taken with TAL200K and ASI224MC with barlowx2. 

Saturn with TAL200K ASI224MC

Last night was a cloud free night but with some minor turbulance around midnight. Saturn showed up nicely between Mars in the east and the moon and jupiter in the West.
Picture was taken unsing TAL200K with ASI224MC, barlow x2 and capture software sharpcap. Stacking using AutoStakkert and editing with CS4.

Almost Full Moon

Clear sky with Moon, Jupiter and Venus visible after sunset.

Fireball June 16, UT21h11 - My Tweet in HLN

As mentioned earlier in my blog I observed a very bright fireball last Saturday, June 16, 2018 UT21h11 (local time 23h11).  In the many years as an amateur astronomer, this was my first real fireball observation and I was really impressed.

Credit U. Reichert

The fireball was reported by 201 people on the IMO (International Meteor Organization) and the event is catogorized under the number 2065 -2018 see the link.

Heatmap of observations is shown below and the traject is probably from south-east toward North-West and the meteor ended above the city of Luik (Liege/Lüttich). I'm located north-west of Luik and saw the meteor moving from north west towards south east.

Different newspapers reported the observation as well ... some highlights.
Even  my tweet,  posted on 23h13 was picked up by the local newspaper "Het Laatste Nieuws" .... nice :)

See also video taken during concert of Foo Fighters during Pink Pop in the Netherlands.