Wondering how Mars looks like through a telescope?
A few days ago, on January 30, 2023, I captured Mars using a webcam (SPC900NC) attached to the Westerlund 90cm Telescope in Uppsala, Sweden. The focal length in the Nasmyth focus is 9 meter. The pixel size of the camera (5.6μm) thus leads to a pixel scale of ...
Finally! Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)
After desperately waiting for two weeks in a row, the weather here in Uppsala finally improved and we could observe the famous comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) with our rooftop telescope at the Angström Laboratory, the so called "Westerlund Telescope". As the comet just ...
Improving the periodic error and guiding ability of a Losmandy GM8 mount
Why bothering about improving Losmandy's GM8 mount Fig. 1: Losmandy GM8 guide star drift while auto-guiding. Overall the mount produces round star images and guiding works. However, the guide star drifts are relatively large (compared to seeing). As mentioned ...
Using an MGEN v2 Autoguider on a Losmandy mount with 492 Digital Drive System
Why I bought a Losmandy GM8 mount Figure 1: Analysis of guide star positions when using the MGEN autoguider on a Skywatcher EQ5 Pro mount. The green circles indicate the offsets in arcsec of the guide star in RA, while blue diamonds show the offsets in DEC. The ...
Comet C/2020 F3 (Neowise)
Comet C/2020 F3 (Neowise). Crop from an image taken at Postalm (Salzburg, AT) on July 21st, 2020 with a Nikon DF using an AF-S 50mm f/1.8 Nikkor at f/2.2 and ISO 1600. The exposure time was 15 ...
Spotting the zodiacal light in spring
The zodiacal light is a nocturnal phenomena that is revealed only to those who dare to escape the city lights. In spring, after sunset and once twilight fades away into a dark and moonless night, a gentle luminous band opens up when looking towards west. Its majestic cone ...
