DeepskyWim

On November 17, 2021, we went running in the forest.  During the run, we could see some nice halo and sundog displays.  Luckily, when we arrived at home, we could still see a nice display with two very bright sundogs, just in time to make a picture.  Two bright sundogs and a part of the halo  

After I ordered the Nexus DSC Pro , the weather was of course too bad to do some real observing.  Luckily, it is perfectly possible to do some daylight testing of the combination Nexus DSC Pro / Obsession.  The Nexus DSC Pro has a standard configuration to communicate with the ServoCAT and uses 10000 steps encoders as a standard, so for my configuration, I did not need to change anything.  I did some tests from inside the garage and everything seemed to work perfectly.  The only problem I had was that the GoTo commands are not automatically executed, so I still need to push the 'Goto' button on the ServoCAT handpad.  Apparently, there is a small bug in the firmware, but Serge from Astro Devices promised me to send a corrected version of the firmware as soon as possible.   After setting up the Wifi, I could also connect without problems from SkySafari to the Nexus DSC and SkySafari to see where the telescope is pointed at and to goto other objects.   Luckily, during the family w

From October 8 to 10, we had our family-weekend.  This time, we went to Devantave, a small town not too far away from La Roche-en-Ardenne.  According to  lightpollutionmap.info , the SQM value should be 21.4.  It promised to be clear and it was around new moon, so I took my Obsession to the weekend to show my family some spectacular objects.   When we arrived on October 8, the clear looked very clear, so I immediately set up the telescope.  Once it was dark enough, I started showing the constellations.  The sky is indeed good here, and the detail in the Milky Way was really impressive! I showed M 13, M 27, and M 31, but the highlight of the evening was Saturn!  I really enjoyed all the 'Oh's and 'Waw's.  As it was already very late, especially for the smaller children, we stopped observing around 22:00.    The next day, I did not set up the telescope anymore, but we could enjoy a nice conjunction of Venus and the Moon. Conjunction of Venus and the Moon, with the Canon E

On October 5, the students of the University organised an observing evening for the the mental health awareness week in Leuven.  The weather was not ideal, but at least it stayed dry during most of the evening.  We had set up two telescopes: the Meade 12 inch telescope and the William Optics Zenithstar 110 TMB APO.   As there were a lot of clouds, we started explaining the different types of telescopes, how to see the difference between stars and planets, ...  Luckily, parts of the sky cleared out, so we could show some constellations and even point the telescopes to Jupiter and Saturn for a little while.   There were around 50 students and they really were interested.  It started raining, so we hurried to break down the telescopes and ended this nice event! Students ready to observe