DeepskyWim

The interior of my Obsession's mirror box is not entirely black.  I am unsure whether it has always been this way or whether the black paint has faded over time.  I still had a lot of black adhesive felt lying around from a previous project.  I applied this adhesive felt to the mirror box of the Obsession telescope, making it considerably darker than before.  This will undoubtedly improve the contrast of the faint objects I intend to observe.  Part of the mirror box with adhesive felt, a part is still with the original paint. Adhesive felt installed in the mirror box. The original paint in the mirror box.

The secondary mirror of my Obsession telescope really needed a new coating.  When looking at it, I could see the back of the mirror through the coating.  I sent the mirror on August 11 to MCM Optique  in France to be recoated.  However, my secondary mirror had a strange di-electrical original coating (with probably 40 - 50 layers of ZrO 2 - SiO 2 ).  This made it impossible to remove the original coating from the mirror.   Alain from MCM Optique measured the reflectivity of the mirror at different wavelengths, which made it clear that certainly at the blue parts of the spectrum, the reflectivity had become very low.  Also in the green (around 500nm) and in the red, the secondary mirror was below what is needed to observe.   The reflectivity of the secondary mirror Alain proposed to cover the existing mirror with a new layer of aluminum, without removing the old coating.  This is not the best solution, but the quality of the newly coated mirror seemed to be very good.   The mirror was s

During the weekend of September 9 and 10, it was possible to visit the radio telescopes in Humain (Belgium).  It was the first time since the site was opened in 1953 that a visit was possible.  The station is used by the  Royal Observatory of Belgium .  A solar interferometer of 48 radio telescopes was build in the 1960s.  The telescopes are not used anymore since 2001.  All telescopes are have a diameter of 4 meter and are located at a height of 293 above sea level.   A few larger telescopes are still in use at the site.  Enjoy the pictures!

On August 30, 2023 we installed an ASA AZ800 telescope in the observatory at work, at the  Institute of Astronomy  of KU Leuven .  The telescope will be one of the telescopes of the MARVEL project, an array of four telescope we will install on the Roque de los Muchachos in La Palma,  It was a very rainy day, but we managed to put the telescope in the observatory.  Enjoy some of the pictures! The upper part of the telescope in the corridor. The lower part of the telescope ready for lifting up. The lower part of the telescope going up. The lower part of the telescope entering the dome. The upper part of the telescope entering the dome. The installed telescope.

August 9: Testing the eFinder August 9 was (finally) a clear night in Belgium.  During our holidays to Italy,  I did not take my telescope, because there is a lot of light pollution at the locations we visited.   I started observing at 23:30 and finished around 1:30.  The temperature dropped from 12.7°C  to 10.7°C, while the humidity increased from 85% to 92%.  The night was quite humid, but the dew control was working without problems.  The SQM was 20.28, which is a decent value for our garden. Since September last year, I am building a eFinder (see AstroKeith's pages , GitHub ).  I am preparing a separate blog post on the eFinder later this year (or the beginning of next year), but I need to do some extra tests firsts.  This observing session was used to do a lot of tests with the eFinder.   The eFinder is a small RaspBerry Pi computer, with an ZWO ASI camera attached to it. A small handpad is used as user interface (a VNC connection to the RaspBerry Pi is also possible).  The

On a very hot July 20, we visited Campo Imperatore, a vast high plateau located in the Abruzzo region of Italy. It is part of the Gran Sasso massif, the highest mountain range in the Apennines.  The scenery is stunning, and when we parked our car to go for a hike, we saw the Osservatorio astronomico di Campo Imperatore.  The observatory is located about an hour and a half drive from the town of Castiglione Messer Raimondo, were we stayed for a few days.  The road to the observatory is full of  and mountainous, but the views are stunning. The plateau is about 20 kilometers long and 7 kilometers wide. It is surrounded by high mountain peaks, including the Corno Grande, the highest mountain in the Apennines.  The Osservatorio astronomico di Campo Imperatore (Astronomical Observatory of Campo Imperatore) is one of the most important astronomical observatories in Italy. It is located in the Abruzzo region, at an altitude of 2,150 meters above sea level. The observatory is known for its exce