Solar Minimum

Already for a month no sunspots seen on the Sun. It seems the Sun is getting into a very low minimum as the days/year without a sunspot are record breaken over a period of 100 years.

Sketching the Moon - Workshop @Helios by Jef De Wit

Astronomy club Helios organised a workshop on sketching craters of the Moon. The workshop was presented by Jef De Wit who explained in detail how to sketch craters of the Moon.

Selfie with Jef De Wit

 With a set of white, grey and black pencils and using black paper the work started to sketch craters from a picture a meade earlier in 2017.

Picture with Nikon D60 on Dobson 12" (Pascal Hilkens) and sketch on the right

The Making of the shetch

Moon 43% Illuminated - Rework

I did some rework of my earlier picture of the Moon (43% Illuminated).

Moon 43% illuminated

This evening I put my scope outside, my first time since November 11th. The Moon is low above the southern horizon and 43% illuminated.

Picture is taken with Nikon D7500 on TLAPO80/480 f/6, ISO100 and shuttertime 1/100s. Raw picture converted to DNG and edited using CS4.

Mercury Transit : Second contact

The Mercury Transit of November 11th 2019 was observed in H-Alpha with SolarMaxIII DS BF15 70/400 f/5.7 and photographed using Nikon D7500.
The picture shows the moment of the second contact of planet Mercury with the solar disk.

Mercury Transit with TAL200K

Compilation from Mercury Transit with Nikon D7500 on TAL200K. Pictures are converted to DNG and editing using CS4 and "darken". The transit was followed with TAL200K from UT12h35 for one hour. The I switched to my TLAPO80 and SolarMaxIII for further observations.

Mercury Transit in H-Alpha

The Mercury Transit of November 11th, 2019 was observed and photographed in Germany near Dresden. In a small city Klipphausen and with an open view on the church of Sora, the sun was shining the entire day. So, perfect conditions to follow the transit of Mercury in front of the Sun. Together with my Helios collegue, Walter, we set up our equipment : both visual as H-alpha equipment was used.

The transit started at local time 13h35 and the observation ended around 16h00,  as the sun was low above the horizon and some clouds did appeare. When looking now at the pictures the seeing was not that good. However, the view, the observations and the pictures were quit an experience. In May 2016 I already say a Mercury transit. But this time it was more special as I could follow the transit in H-Alpha.
Above and below is a picture sequence of the transit of Mercury. The first row is showing the second contact of Mercury with the limb or edge of the Sun. The next row is the transit over the sun's disk itself.