DeepskyWim

I received the Premium edition of the  Interstellarum Deep Sky Guide as a gift for Christmas.  This guide is a very nice addition to the Interstellarum Deep Sky Atlas , that I got in 2021.  The guide is not the typical guide that most observers expect.  It is full of pictures (from the DSS) and drawings (made by the authors) of the most interesting Deep Sky objects that are visible.  There is no extra information, for I don't think that this information is needed.  If you need to know more about the objects, it is easy to find more information on the internet.  The information on the objects is anyway not known perfectly and is still changing.  So, adding this information would make this book out of date in a few years time.  The drawings and the pictures will be relevant for ever!  The drawings are real masterpieces and of very high quality.  The book itself is in German, but there is hardly any written text in the book, so this is not a problem at all.  There is a bit of informa

When looking at the weather the last week, I did not expect a clear night anymore in 2022. I was really surprised when I saw a message of an observer-friend to ask if I was interested in observing at our local observing location.  I quickly checked the weather apps, and indeed, a nice night was predicted.  The temperature was 3.1°, with a humidity of 88%.  The humidity rose to 92% at the end of the session, and the temperature to 3.6° (with a minimum of 2.8°).  There was quite some wind, which could sometimes be seen through the eyepiece. I only arrived at the site around 21:15, when already 6 other observers were enjoying the clear night.  After installing my 18'' Obsession , I could start observing.  I tested the eFinder , which I have built the last months.  I'll described the eFinder in more detail in an upcoming blog post.  I started with a detailed look of M 42.  It is always amazing how much details can be seen in the Orion nebula.  Using the 13mm Tele Vue Ethos eye

This year, after the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, I went to the USA to work on the commissioning of the MIRI instrument of JWST .  Some of my colleagues were also in the States later in the year.  In June, I had the last chance to order something from a webshop in the USA, so I finally decided to order the 21mm Tele Vue Ethos eyepiece.  I ordered the eyepiece on June 7, 2022 and already received it before the end of June.   The impressive 21mm Tele Vue Ethos eyepiece I could test the 21mm Ethos the first time during the observing session of the end of July - beginning of August .  The views are really impressive, with a lot of contrast and perfectly correctly all over the very impressive field of view.  In the picture below, you can see the size of the 21mm Ethos compared to the 31mm Nagler eyepiece.  We always called the 31mm Nagler the hand grenade, but the 21mm Ethos is even larger (but a bit less thick).  I guess I also need to find a name for the 21mm Eth

Since I installed the ServoCAT on my 18" Obsession ,  there were loose cables all around the telescope.  Luckily,  Markless Astronomics  builds the DSC Stalk II , which removes the cable clutter and adds a small table to the telescope to put the Nexus DSC Pro (there is also an option to put an Argo Navis there). I ordered the DSC Stalk II on August 9.  Charles promised me to have the Stalk ready in 6 weeks time, but he managed to get the package ready by August 23.  A very nice surprise!  The not so nice surprise was that it took Belgian customs a few weeks before they released the package on September 21.  I was impressed by the way everything was packaged.  There was for sure no risk of damaging the package during transport!  The installation process is very easy and all cables are nicely hidden.  A bumper block is part of the DSC Stalk II package and helps in stabilizing the rocker in the rocker box.  This will certainly make the pointing using the Nexus DSC Pro more accurate