These buildings in the Dwingelderveld Heide, next to the Dwingeloo Radio Telescope, host two astronomical institutes. ASTRON is the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, and it operates the distributed radio telescope interferometer arrays LOFAR and WSRT-APERTIF. JIVE is a European Research Infrastructure Consortium, and it operates the central data processor and the data archive of the …
Visitors of Dwingelderveld all stop by and admire the Dwingeloo Radio Telescope, whether they are walking, cycling, or horse riding in the neighborhood. But they never see this historical instrument this way. The telescope was inaugurated in 1956 and contributed greatly to the understanding of our Galaxy (among other things) in the following decades. It …
For one of our first projects “in the wild”, we went to visit the Havelte hunebeds D53 and D54, our favourites. These 5000-years structures provide scenic views of the Drentsche landscape during the day, and we thought they would make an excellent foreground for capturing the Milky Way. It was a moonless Saturday night, and …
Following the experience with Comet NEOWISE, and the relatively short exposures one can make with a simple tripod+DSLR camera combination (500 rule!), back in the Netherlands we immediately purchased a mechanical mount, the Omegon Minitrack LX3. This cheap device tracks the night sky up to an hour, as it rotates above our heads. Depending on …
More precisely, C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE), the comet that made most of us astrophotographers this year, even if for a short while. It was a stunning view from lake Balaton, Hungary. The picture was taken on 20 July from a spot along the shoreline where city lights were a bit less disturbing (but not far from …
This is our adventure in starting with astrophotography. We are full of plans to travel all around the world to take wonderful pictures of faraway cities, landscapes, and skies. Maybe one day. But for now, we are just (mostly) stuck in our home town in Hoogeveen, The Netherlands. But at least we have all the …