Happy Anniversary : 9 years blogging!

Today, I celebrate 9 years of blogging. My blog "Astro Page" started on december 23, 2012. I posted more then 1600 posts and people visited my blog more then 120.000 times. 

First Light ASI2600MC Pro: Orion Nebula and Pleiades

Awaiting a clear sky for testing my Astrocamera ASI2600MC Pro. For this first light I used my refractor TLAPO80/480 f/6 which was connected to N.I.N.A.

Setting : TLAPO80/480 f/6 and ASI2600MC Pro, ZWO Miniguidescope 30f/4 with ASI224MC

Setting : Cooling -10°C - No dewheat; outside temperature -7°C

Software : N.I.N.A with PHD2 for guiding. Astropixel Processing and CS4.

Object 1: Orion Nebule M42 with Running Man Nebule 

Object 2: Pleiades M45

Issues : 

- Com port not found when connecting the mount. This was solved to rename the com port back to its previous name.

- PHD2 guiding not smooth due to calibration of a to big star; recalibration done using a smaller star. 

- Guiding errors resulting in startrails impacting 50% of pictures 

- Gray scale in Tiff file. When saving 16bit data no color was found in the Tiff file. This was solved with the settings in  APP.

- stars are not sharp at the edges of the pictures. After a deep investigation the rootcause was identified as a too short back focus distance (85mm in stead of 123mm).

As a conclusion: great first light experience with ASI2600MC with  a couple of beginner mistakes. But I believe these will be solved next time. My PHD2 guiding experience is low and needs to be increase as well.

Astronomical Highlights 2021

Again a strange year due to the wave 3 and wave 4 Covid-19 pandemic but still, I was able to got out and watched the sky. Some of my astronomical hightlights in 2021 and astronomical "wow" moments are listed below :

#1 Green flash at sunset @  Belgian coast (this picture was published in magazine Heelal)

#2 Noctilucent clouds (NLC) 

#3 My best picture so far of Jupiter

#4 Moon with Mercury in the evening sky

#5 Orion Nebula in OIII, H-alpha and RGB

Worth mentioning

#6 Mars near open cluster Messier M35 (this picture was published in magazine Heelal)

#7 Partial Sun eclipse with Astronomical club "Helios"

#8 Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) in the morning sky

#9 My first guiding session photographing the Veil Nebula using PHD2 and N.I.N.A  

#10 Sunspots with CaK filter using ASI224MC camera

Jupiter Saturn Venus in the evening sky

This evening I tried to find comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) low above the south-western horizon. Unfortunately without succes and probably due to some low clouds. Instead I took some pictures of the Jupiter-Saturn-Venus allignment.

Upcoming XMAS ARISS SSTV Event

An ARISS Slow Scan TV (SSTV) event is scheduled from the International Space Station (ISS) for late December. This XMAS ARISS SSTV event is planned between december 26 and december 31.

ISS Moon Transit

On December 8, 2021, UT17h06, the International Space Station - ISS - was flying in front of the Moon. This was easy observed with the naked eye. I made different pictures but was unable to get a sharp picture of the station. The pictures shows the ISS twice.. as the picture was stacked. 

Awards ARISS SSTV MAI75 Experiment December 1

I received my Awards from SSTV December MAI75 experiment with ISS Expedition 66 (december 1, 2021).