Comet C/2025 A6 Lemmon on Halloween evening

Haloween evening, October 31, 2025 during a bright interval I was able to image Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon).
This time I used my Star Adventurer 2i together with Nikon D7500, a set up which made it possible to track the comet for 60s.

Setting: Nikon D7500

Mount: Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i

Exposure : 4x60s ISO800; 2x10s ISO3200; 2x10s ISO6400

Software: APP, CS4 and DeNoise AI

Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) October 27

On the evening of October 27 ... a cloud free sky. So time to observe Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon).
I took a wide field using more then 260 images, each 5s.

The other images were taken with a larger focal point but with a time difference of one hour. Due to this time difference, the comet was low above the horizon resulting in fainting out of the tail.

Sun October 26

A small opening in the clouds and windy, but still I took my chance resulting in only one capture of the Sun. Some nice prominences at the east side.

Setting: Sol'Ex by James R, 2nd Gen Slit, ASI678MM, TLAPO80/480

Herschel Wedge

Tilt: -0,7° Sx/Sy 1,12

Software: SharpCap, JSolex, Inti, CS4

Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon)

Finally an open sky for about half and hour, which was enough to capture comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon).

Setting: Nikon D7500 with 112mm f/5.3, ISO6400 and exposure time of 5s

No Guiding

Software: APP 2.0.0. beta29, DeNoise AI, CS4

APP: Normal and MAD regression Avg (8;2)

Discussion:

Brigth core with both dust tail and ion tail. Structure in ion tail with knots aswell with small and wider regions. Tail extends minimum 5° .

Volcano Crater Hrossaborg (Iceland) - Apollo & Oblivion

During our trip through Iceland, we also visited the Hrossaborg Crater.

Hrossaborg Crater is a volcanic crater located in northeast Iceland, near Lake Mývatn. It’s actually an old tuff ring, formed by explosive volcanic activity, est 10.000 years ago, when magma came into contact with groundwater. The crater’s walls rise sharply and form a nearly perfect circle, giving it an otherworldly appearance—especially when seen from above or across the surrounding lava fields.

Because of its dramatic, barren landscape, Hrossaborg has been used as a filming location for several productions that wanted to capture a “moon-like” or alien environment.


Oblivion (2013) – The sci-fi film starring Tom Cruise used Hrossaborg as one of its key shooting locations. In the movie, it served as a backdrop for the scenes involving the base of operations on the desolate Earth. The stark volcanic terrain helped create the illusion of a post-apocalyptic world.

Apollo Connection – While not directly related to the Apollo missions, the resemblance of Iceland’s volcanic landscapes (including Hrossaborg and nearby regions like Askja and the Highlands) to the Moon’s surface led NASA to train Apollo astronauts in Iceland during the 1960s. They practiced geological fieldwork here to prepare for moon exploration.

Reinstalling Astro Software using WIndows 11 (SharpCap, EQMOD, PHD2, ASCOM)

 

Screenshot with Sharpcam, EQMOD, PHD2

A couple of months ago I bought a more powerfull PC which also has W11. As a consequence I needed to reinstall all software to connect and work with my existing mounts and camera's.
Before I used mainly SharpCap and N.I.N.A. : SharpCap to polaralign and planet imaging. N.I.N.A. is used for deepsky imaging. Lately I'm using SharCap a lot for Solar Imaging and  found out more things can be done: feature tracking for imaging planets and the sun aswell as platesolving. I didn't use both of them but seems I need to get into this. 

In stead of installing N.I.N.A. I focussed on getting everything to work with SharpCap, meaning connecting the mount and my ASI Camera's.

At first following software was installed and/or updated with the last version:

- SharpCap 

- ASCOM 7.0.2

- PHD2 2.6.13

- EQMOD v200w 

After installing Synscan and setting up Ascom, the system requested to upgrade by firmware of the SynScan. I never did this before and thus the firmware of Synscan was upgraded to V4.42.

A dry run was done using:

- mount AZEQ6GT

- ASI Camera's: ZWO224MC and ZWO2600MC

- SharpCap

- Stellarium V25.2

- EQMOD

- PHD2

I used an external USB hub with 4 USB connections. The RJ cable from my SynScan was connected using an USB to the USB hub creating a serial COM 4 port. This can be checked using Devices of W11.

Baud speed was set on 9600 and after all connecting the dry run was performed succesful.

Below is my new workproces which still needs to be tested during a clear sky :)

Lecture by Dr. Marcel van Daalen

 

During the annual JVS/VVS weekend (October 4th), Dr. Marcel van Daalen of the university of Leiden gave a lecture on the current status of our understanding of the universum. He talked about historical facts, observations and aswell inconsistencies.