Celebrating 10 years blogging - Pascal Hilkens Astro Page

Today, exactly 10 years ago on December 23, 2012, I started with blogging and promoting my hobby via a personal blog. During these 10 years, I included 5 pages on my blog (Astro Page, Usefull links, Who Am I, Solargraphy and Helios), posted more then 1800 items and reached almost 130.000 people.

Start Winter

The Astronomical winter will start today, December 21, 22h48 local time (UT21h48).

Mars Color - IR 742nm comparison

 

Mars Comparison between:

Left -Color Image ASI224MC with IR/UV blocker filter and

Right - Image ASI224MC with IR 742 bandpass filter 

Setting: TAL200K f/8.5, ASI224MC, Barlox2 and ADC

Software: SharpCap4, AstroSurface

Sun December 16 reworked using AstroSurface

 

My image of the Sun in H-apha from December 16, 2022 is reworked using AstroSurface. The software is able to stack my SER movie and to edit the result using deconvolution, sharpening, ... Normally I stack my pictures using AS3! and editting with IMPPG and CS4. The result is very promissing.
The picture shows an active Sun with different prominences.

Setting: SolarMaxIII 70/400 f/5.7 DS, ASI290MM
Software: SharpCap4, AstroSurface

Lights out ! 1 hour more dark sky

Great news! Starting from tomorrow onwards, December 19, 2022, my hometown will turn off the city lights one hour earlier, which is at 11pm. About 7 years ago, they have been turning the lights off  from midnight till 5AM in the morning. So, one hour more dark sky!

Mars IR742nm

 

Image of Mars (December 12, 2022) using my IR 742 bandpass filter (above). To compare, below is the color picture of Mars using the IR/UV blocker filter. 

Setting: TAL200K f/8.5, ASI224MC, Barlowx2, ADC, IR742nm bandpass filter

Software: SharpCap4, AstroSurface

Mars - Edit with AstroSurface T7 Titania

My earlier images of Mars (December 12th) are reworked using AstroSurface T7 Titania - see this link http://astrosurface.com/

This free software has the ability to stack and to edit the images inclusing, wavelets, sharpen, deconvolution but also RGB splitting and merging. So far the software is an added value on the once I'm currently using. 

Setting: TAL200K f/8.5, ASI224MC, Barlowx2, ADC, IR/UV blocker

Software : SharpCap 4, AstroSurface