Galaxies and supermassive black holes are intimately related: every galaxy has one in its center. Galaxies are the greatest structures that can be formed by stars, they contain billions of them. While black holes are the densest objects in the Universe, they are confined to a very tiny space compared to galactic scales. Still, galaxies …
The Pirate Moon Cluster is an open star cluster much more evolved than the ones in the Orion and the Rosette Nebula, and even the Pleiades. Designated with the number NGC 1647, this cluster is 150 million years old! What made it an interesting target this time is the fact that a minor planet was …
Hunt for Minor Planets: Psyche under the Pirate Moon Lees meer »
The Orion Nebula can be found to the south of Orion’s Belt, in the constellation Orion. It is a diffuse nebula in the Milky Way, that harbors lots of young stars. Stars frequently form in groups, called open clusters. The most ideal conditions for star formation are in cold, dusty places, deeply hidden in vast …
When working on the atomic bomb in 1942, Edward Teller (fellow Hungarian) raised the possibility that a nuclear explosion might actually ignite the whole atmosphere. That is, it would cause a chain reaction of nuclear fusion. However, he and his colleagues’ detailed calculations later showed this is not the case (hallelujah!). The pressure in the …
The Rosette Nebula is an H-II region in the constellation Monoceros. The nebula is associated with an open cluster whose stars light up the nebula. The Rosette Nebula is an immense nebula, some three times larger than the Orion Nebula and three times farther away. The night of 19 December 2020 was very special because it …
Delving into narrow-band imaging: the Rosette Nebula Lees meer »
According to Greek mythology, the Pleiades represents seven sisters of Atlas, who was busy holding the skies together and could not take care of them. Zeus turned them into stars, to protect them from Orion, the hunter chasing the girls. Similar stories exist in various cultures about the seven sisters and young males with a …
Advertised as the Bethlehem star of 2020, this event attracted attention from all over the world. The truth is, conjunctions (when two planets appear more or less in the same direction) occur every single year. It is just this time, it happened to the two largest planets of our Solar System. And that is a …
The Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 2020 Lees meer »
We could not wait to test our new telescope! We set it up in our backyard. Unfortunately, a streetlight directly shines in, and our narrow-band filter has not arrived yet. But we have so much to learn so we started our first practicing session on the night of 6/7 November 2020. The first shock was that …
Having spent a few weeks experimenting with our camera and wide-angle photography, we decided it is time to get a bit more serious and invest in a telescope. It was not an easy decision because there are so many options depending on your interest, light pollution environment, and your bank account of course. Since we …
How to capture the beauty of a planet that dominates the night sky, and it is so bright that even its reflection can be seen in the channels and ponds so numerous in Dutch towns? Mars (upper right in the image, and the water below) will be in opposition with Earth later this October when …