Flanders invests 21 million in Einstein Telescope

Good news... Flanders invests 21 million in the Einstein Telescope. The euroregion at the border between Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands will be "a place in the Champions League of the European economy" said our Minister Jo Brouns. 

See also this link : Einsteintelescope.nl 

Selfie with Prof. Nick Van Remortel @ VVS Seminary (Oct 2023)

Moon Halo

 

An 360° halo around the moon. Picture taken with Nikon D7500 10mm f/3.5.

Sun in H-Alpha

 

It was a sunny day with high clouds and around 0°C. I was not able to make some flats and therefor it's not a great picture but still ... a couple of huge prominences and filaments.

Setting: SolarMaxIII 70/400 f/5.7 DS BF15 and 0,5x reducer with ASI290MM
Exposure : 1000 frames @ 81,86fps or 5.08ms using SSD, binning 1x1

Software : SharpCap 4.1, AstroSurface V1, CS4

Horsehead and Flame Nebula : H-Alpha and L-Pro Filter

My session of the Horsehead and Flame Nebula earlier this week (see this link) was stacked with my session in H-alpha done in March 2022 (see this link).

The result is a stacked image of 3h10m and clearly more details can be seen. 

Setting: TLAPO80/480 f/6 with ASI2600MC
Guiding : ASI290MM on Guiding scope ZWO Miniscope 30f/4
Filter : Optolong L-Pro; Lights : 24x300s; Flats (10x0,35s), Darks(5), Bias (5), DarkFlats (10)
Filter : H-Alpha; Lights 2x600s, 10x300s

Software : SharpCap 4.1 (Poolallignment), Stellarium, N.I.N.A., APP, CS4, Denoise AI

Horsehead and Flame Nebula

Picture taken on wednesday January 10, 2024 of both Flame (NGC2024) and Horsehead Nebulae (IC434) in constellation Orion. Conditions were good with temperatures between -4.5°C en -6.5°C. This was my first DSO session since June last year. It was also my first DSO session using the Optolong L-Pro filter. It took me more then a hour from installing the mount to taken my first photo. This is beyond the fact that the day before the entire set up was tested inside (dry run). 

Setting: TLAPO80/480 f/6 with ASI2600MC

Guiding : ASI290MM on Guiding scope ZWO Miniscope 30f/4 

Filter : Optolong L-Pro

Lights : 24x300s; Flats (10x0,35s), Darks(5), Bias (5), DarkFlats (10)

Software : SharpCap 4.1 (Poolallignment), Stellarium, N.I.N.A., APP, CS4, Denoise AI

Sol'Ex Lecture @ Astrophotography Day

Walter, Johan and Myself (all Helios members) will be talking about their experience with the Sol'Ex. This is planned for January 27th during the annual Astrophotography day.

Venus and Mercury

This morning I could take some picture of Venus and Mercury. The picture was taken in Aarschot at the Demer river. The temperature was about -7.5°C