Category: Landscape

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Solar Eclipse 2026-08-12 in Aragón, Spain

Preparations for this eclipse started already in 2019, when I first visited the villages of Cetina and Sisamon. The villages are just a few kilometers apart and are located between Madrid and Zaragoza. Especially the vicinity of Sisamon profed to have great spots for night time observations, as light pollution is pretty low. The same spot I observed in 2019 was also a perfect spot for the solar eclipse, as it lies approximately 1000m above sea level in a high plane. To the west, only some distant hills are seen, reaching 2 degrees above the horizon at maximum. This was crucial, as the totality would happen with the sun being only 7 degrees above the horizon.

Thanks to the mayor of Sisamon and my sister in law to communicate with him, I got the permission to setup my observation base at this very location. He also supported me in having my complete equipment without any obstacles and disturbances, despite a good 100 locals joining the event. They were all essential for the emotional experience, as many of them started cheering and shouting when totality arrived.
A big THANK YOU to everyone involved to make this a perfect day!

According equipment, my primary goal was to get the shots for the Eclipse Mega Movie project (a Sonoma State / NASA project, I participated the third time). Then, some overview and especially landscape views of totality were on my plan, to also showcase the shadow of the moon.

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Aurora trip to Tromsø

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)

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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.

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Aurora in Iceland

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!

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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

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Winter Wonderland in Helsinki

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

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Space Travel – Road trip from Space Coast to Star Base

The April 2024 total solar eclipse was a must-see event for me. To add some adventure before the big event, we decided to start from Space Coast (Kennedy Space Center) in Florida and drive all the way to Boca Chica for a visit to SpaceX’s Star Base in Texas. Inbetween, lots of interresting places waited to be visited (theme parks in Orlando, New Orleans for Mardi Gras, Space Center Houston, …). Apart from an essential piece of luggage which did not arrive (and a horrible mosquito attack in the Louisiana swamps), the biggest disappointment was the scrubbed launch of the last Atlas IV rocket with no time to wait for the next time frame. After all, it was a incredible trip. On the one hand, there were rockets (including a Falcon 9 launch), satellites, rovers and many more space tech. On the other hand, there were fascinating animals, buzzing cities and great people.

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Sahara dust – or did we wake up on Mars?

Last night, during quite clear conditions, the majority of the stars vanished in a haze. The bright moon did the rest to let me cease imaging. The haze was not actually a haze, but rather the dust carried from the Sahara desert to central Europe.
In the morning, the rising Sun appeared rather soft and set in a diffuse sky. If there were no buildings, but red sandy flats, one could be tempted to be viewing new images from Mars 😉

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Autumn Impressions from Hallstatt and Altaussee

I love these autumn days with pristine weather. Temperatures are still pleasent. The many red, brown, yellow and some green leaves combined with blue skies create the perfect scenery for walks and hikes.
This wonderful October day had just everything of the above, set in the mountain region in Salzkammergut in Austria! The following images were taken in Hallstatt as well as around Altausseersee…

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Comet C2020 F3 NEOWISE

This years best view of a comet has finally been visible in my region. Weather conditions have been really favorable for a night time spectacle.
Combined with the setting across my home town Graz, viewing from top of Plabutsch (located at the eastern edge of Graz) permitted the comet to rise exactly next to the 2 antennas on the mountain top of Schöckl in 14km distance.

See how remarkably bright the comet is in the wider angle image below. This image was taken with a mobile phone camera! And the comet is clearly visible!

The timelapse video shows the comet rising at 02:38 CEST until mid of nautic twilight at 03:54 CEST. See the amazing pattern of the noctilucent clouds going in waves!

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Comet C2020 F3 NEOWISE rising over mount Schöckl (1445m) near Graz, Austria

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