… in my world, there is Photography, Astronomy, Electronics, Software Engineering, 3d printing and much more
On August 12 I will be in central Spain to observe the solar eclipse. Apart from the regular camera setup, this time I will have a dedicated camera running, to show the sun being completely shadowed by the moon.
Follow the link for the live feed: https://live.picsngeek.at/
Hannes and Gerhard (two fellows from the astronomy club) invited me to join their endeavor to see the northern lights in Tromsø. It paid off to participate from the first moment on. Despite unpleasant weather forecasts, it was a great trip with beautiful sightseeing opportunities, good food, some drinks and relaxed time (waiting for the lights to come)
Only a few of the days in northern Norway were disturbed with unfavorable weather. We had like every type of possible weather conditions from strong wind, snowfall, icy roads to blue skies and temperatures above freezing. More off, from the 10 days we spent around Tromsø, we were fortunate to see the northern lights on 8 nights.
Even more, on 3 of these nights, an auroral substorm provided beautiful and intense displays of colors (mostly green, but also red and violet), where sometimes all the surroundings were cast in green light.
Earlier this year, I happened to meet Elineema from Tanzania. He spent some time in Austria for studies. More importantly, he is responsible for the Mount Meru Astronomical Observatory (https://mmao.space). During his stay he contacted the observatory to participate in one of the observation nights. After a perfect night at the observatory and a few more follow up meetings, he invited me to visit ‘his’ observatory. When the decision was finally made to travel to Tanzania in November, preparations startet. Apart from plenty of time for Tanzania and the incredible african wild life, a key component was to promote astronomy. The importance of astronomy in curriculum is not (yet) comparable to Austria. It also seems that some teachers are not sufficiently trained in astronomy. Therefore, the MMAO frequently organizes teacher trainings. This time, it was me to guide a group of teachers through a day of Oh’s and Ah’s of astronomy. Another part was to visit schools and a university and get into contact with many students, teachers, headmasters, … who were all so welcoming and fascinating personalities!
Personal note: Asante kwa kila mtu niliyekutana naye Tanzania. Hasa kwa Elineema na familia yako shukrani zangu za dhati kwa wakati huu wa ajabu na usiosahaulika!
With the sun in solar maximum 2024 had several fascinating aurora events even far from the aurora oval at around 66 degrees latitude. Therefore I planned for a trip to Iceland, to see aurora in its best. Who could expect the sun to take a pause, so no significant eruption takes place from the first days of 2025 on? Reencouraged with a note from space weather officials, that the setting of interplanetary magnetic field, earths magnetic field and the ring current was favorable to produce aurora at least close to the aurora oval, I travelled to Iceland. Arriving there in anticipation for a pristine northern winter experience had another surprise at hand: a large low pressure zone lured south of Iceland. This low pressure zone caused strong winds (reaching almost 30m/s), lots of rain and unusually high temperatures (up to 9°C) for February.
After four days of grey skies and rain, weather was improving a bit. Even a 3-4 hour window of cloudless skies was predicted for the late evening. As if planned, when the clouds subseeded, the aurora began its show. Most of the time, Aurora was like eery greyish cloud bands to the naked eye. But during phases of increased intensity, green and red tones were also clearly visible. On camera, especially the green aurora looks spectacular!
The following day was again quite wet. But at night, once again a few hours with little cloud cover provided another aurora show to be witnessed. To top off the Iceland experience, on the last day a few moments of sunlight during sunset let me part in joy to have seen aurora and the beauty of this island
Recently I visited Helsinki (Finland). Temperatures dropped down to -15°C, causing even the waters in Kruununvuorenselkä to freeze over. Further out, patches of ice foes were drifting. Along with a fresh blanket of snow, everything just looked amazing. Especially Nuuksio national park close to Helsinki provided a marvellous setting for a great time
Finally, the long awaited comet C2023/A3 Tsuchinschan-ATLAS reappeared after its passage close to the sun. With a well timed window between clouds, I could observe and image the comet. From all the announcements, I expected the comet to be brighter. But still, it is a naked eye comet to enjoy with a pretty long tail.
So i started a new imaging run with higher magnification (1320mm instead of 564mm) and more sensitive camera. The resulting image of almost 13 hours data shows a lot more of the surrounding and weak features, even though, the same imaging location was used. The same Bortle 6-7 location was used, observing low above the light cone of the city.
Image data:
Date: 2024-01-10 – 2024-01-27
Location: Graz, Austria
Telescope: TS 256mm f/5 Newtonian with 1.06x ES HR coma corrector (equals to 1320mm focal length)
Camera: QHY268M @ -10C
Filters: Optolong LRGB, Baader H-alpha, O-iii
Guiding: PHD2 off-axis guider (ASI485)
Exposures:
H-alpha: 30x600s
O-iii: 24x600s
L: 116x60s
R: 24x120s
G: 18x120s
B: 18x120s
During the last weeks I imaged IC1613, a dwarf galaxy of the local group in constellation Cetus. After stacking the images, I detected an object, which obviousely moved 28 arcsec during the 129 minutes I captured images on November 15th. It seems to be Asteroid (140) Siwa.
On November 04 and 05 a few Coronal Mass Ejections were released from the sun (a coronal hole is facing our direction). Yesterday evening at 17:06 CET the solar storm arrived and created an impressive aurora display. The most fascinating fact is, that conditions were so intense, that even in southern Austria (below 47 degrees North) the sky in northern directions was colored red! It was an amazing visual experience!
The pictures below were captured with my mobile phone. The aurora was so bright, that even handheld images were possible!
On August 12, two successive solar flares erupted from active region AR13395 within 92 minutes. The video begins at the end of the C8.8 eruption, which started at 09:04 UTC. At 2/3rds in the video, the second eruption occurs, which startet at 10:36 and lasted till 10:54.
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