Category: General

Last weekend we had a small star-party in Any Rieux Martin in the northern part of France. The weather was just wonderful and on Friday and Saturday night we could observe through the night. I had a lot of first time viewings of some fantastic objects like the Flame Nebula and the complete Rosette Nebula. I also had the chance to observe a few Messier objects near the southern horizon (M 79, M 41 and M93). A detailed report will be logged later on this month, but here are a few images that were taken on the first evening. Click on the images to enlarge.

The Royal Mail (UK) celebrates 50 years of the BBC's Sky at Night television programme with the issue of 6 stamps that show 6 different Caldwell Objects. On the stamps you see 6 wonderful colour images of 4 planetary nebulae, a galaxy and an emission / reflection nebula.
 
Data on the different stamps / images:
 
1. 1st Class : Caldwell 55, the Saturn Nebula, planetary nebula in Aquarius
2. 1st Class : Caldwell 39, the Eskimo Nebula, planetary nebula in Gemini
3. 50 pence : Caldwell 6, the Cats Eye Nebula, planetary nebula in Draco
4. 50 pence : Caldwell 63, the Helix Nebula, planetary nebula in Aquarius
5. 72 pence : Caldwell 31, the Flaming Star Nebula, an emission / reflection nebula in Auriga (image by Robert Gendler)
6. 72 pence : Caldwell 53, the Spindle, a lenticular galaxy in Sextans
 
 
So if you are an amateur astronomer and stamp collector, this set of six celestial gems might be of interest to you! For more information and ordering the set of stamps, follow this link to the website of The Royal Mail.

 

Click on image to enlarge
 
 

The last few weeks the weather has been very good, and every night an hour before sunset, we took a long walk through the fields just down the road where we live. It's amazing what you sometimes can see when taking your time. Every evening we noticed not only different animals and plants, but also different celestial sights. Most of the time we carry a small digital camera with us, to record some of the things we encounter on our daily walk. Here are a few images we shot last week, two of a sunset and one of the Moon which is visible through the branches of a huge tree. Hope you enjoy the pics.

Please click on the images to enlarge!

Well, after a turbulent five months I am glad to be back again. During this period my father became very ill, and a few weeks ago he sadly passed away in hospital after a 10-week stay on an intensive care unit. As you can imagine I had other things on my mind than maintaining my blog and site.

It is not easy to go through such dark times in your life, but luckily, there is always someone or something that helps you to forget everything for a little while, like being with your family and friends. And every now and again, I also found a little comfort being outside under the stars, alone or with Leo, a fellow observer. I didn’t log any of these short observing-sessions but simply tried to enjoy the views and forget all the troubles for a few minutes. Sitting under the stars one night, I thought about Frodo (Lord of the Rings) who gets a most wonderful gift from Lady Galadriel: the light of Earendil’s star caught in a small crystal bottle filled with water from her fountain. She presents this gift to Frodo saying:

“May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out”.

And that’s how I felt about the stars that night. They were lights that somehow guided me trough a dark period of my life.

Just after my father died, we went outside one evening, and in the western sky we saw a very bright Venus. My girlfriend said to me, think of this bright light as being your father, shining for us. This thought somehow was very comforting, so maybe that’s an idea for anybody who loses a dear one. Give him or her a place in the starry sky, so that when you’re under the starry sky, you have the feeling that he / she is with you. I still miss my father very much, but when I go out tonight and see Venus shining in the twilight, I will do this with positive feelings, thinking about the good times we had together. That’s what he would have wanted me to do.

Clear Skies and bright stars to all of you!

During my short holiday in Drente (Netherlands) I visited the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope, one of the observing facilities of ASTRON. It was quite an impressive sight to see the telescopes lined up in the field.

The Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope is one of the most powerful radio observatories in the world. It enables astronomers to study a wide range of astrophysical problems: from pulsars to kinematics of nearby galaxies to the physics of black-holes. The WSRT is an open user facility available for scientists from any country. It is also part of the European VLBI network (EVN) of radio telescopes. This allows the astronomers to obtain some of the sharpest and more detailed images possible in astronomy. (Text from ASTRON Website)

I took a few snapshots from the radiotelescope for my astronomy journal. Click on the images to enlarge.

Observing the deepsky
This weekend is packed with astronomy. Last night I enjoyed a few hours of stargazing with Leo, a fellow astronomer. We toured Cassiopeia, Cepheus, Andromeda and Perseus using big binoculars (15x80 and 20x90) and the Sky Window / Sky Mirror. Occasionally we used Leo's 10-inch Dobson. We visited a few of old friends: Stock 2, the double cluster, ET (NGC 457), Herschel's Garnet Star, M 31, The hockey stick, Alpha Persei Moving Cluster, Algol, and later that evening a nearly full Moon. The seeing was not to good, but it felt good to have a few hours of deepsky observing after two weeks.

Today I installed the new operating system on my iMac, OS X Tiger. The new features are just fantastic, especially the dashboard with all its free widgets you can download from the Internet. Of course there are already some widgets for amateur astronomers: NASA breaking News, from ESA/NASA live sunspots, lunar phases, clear sky clock. There are added widgets to the Apple site every day, so if your an Apple addict like me, follow this link and start downloading and installing all those nice little programs! The image below (click to enlarge) should give you an idea what the widgets look like. It is a screen dump from my I-mac.


Apple rules....

Welcome to my new blog, Clear Skies On Demand (.... a backyard-astronomer's dream). After using my Astro Weblog for two years I decided it was time for a little change. I had the weblog completely re-designed by Moxie design studios. You can access Clear Skies In Demand through my website http://www.backyard-astro.com or directly using this link: http://www.backyard-astro.com/blog/

If you enter Clear Skies On Demand, it always will open in a new window. You can return to my website by clicking on backyard-astro.com in the banner at the top.

Due to security problems I had to remove the comments in the old Astro Weblog (spammers). Now you can register as a member (top right). Then you will be able to post comments on all entries. You can also browse through the archives by month, by date and by category.

I hope you will enjoy the new design (and of course the present and future content). Feel free to leave your comments.

Clear Skies to all of you!

Math