I frequently receive questions, personally or through e-mail originating from within the Netherlands as well as abroad. Questions concering this
website, equipment, observations or observation guides.
It's fun to help others in this hobby, although I'm not pretending to have an answer to everything. No one ever stops to learn and there is always
something new to be discovered.
Below you will find a list of questions I often receive. |
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| Why a website? |
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| Astronomie is a hobby with many faces, not bound by any border. To share my experiences I believe a website is the best way to reach minds alike around the world. |
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| Are you trying to achieve anything by practicing astronomy? |
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| No, not really. It's a hobby. One that has gotten slightly out of hand, but still: a hobby. The only goal I have set for myself is to view new
objects every time I'm observing. I'm not truly trying to achieve something. However, as an active amateur astronomer I like to reach out to share my
enjoyment with anyone interested. |
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| Why primarily visual astronomy instead of astrophotography? |
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| Before I commit myself to photographing the skies I want to see as much of it as possible. Observations are unique and many more objects come by
visually than they do photographically. For the time being I will restrict my photographic endeavours to atmospheric phenomena, conjunctions of the
moon & planets and fixed tripod (timelapse)photography. That being said, I will definitely get into astrophotography in the future... But not
any time soon... so very much remains to be observed. |
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| Where have the observing guides gone that used to be available on this website? |
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| The guides, logs and tours were removed. It became too much work to maintain, both in English and in Dutch. Also, it took away the time I wanted
to use to write new, expanded guides for my own use. Apart from that it was rapidly becoming a very complete work, one that I would not want to see
someone else publish without my consent. |
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| Do you intend to publish these guides? |
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| Yes. I expect guides for all 88 constellation
at the end of 2011/beginning of 2012. After completion I will translate
everything to English and a publication will take shape. That may be in PDF,
as an e-magazine, e-book or as an app. It will include AstroPlanner
planfiles and tours for Autostar, NexRemote and EQMOD. Ik am hopeful to
publish in mid-2012. |
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For how many constellations have you completed your guides?
How many objects do they contain? |
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| 86 Constellations completed (DSO's up to
and including mag. 14.0): |
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- 861 Carbon stars
- 1523 Open Clusters
- 149 Globular Clusters
- 317 Nebulae
- 107 Dark Nebulae
- 433 Planetary Nebulae
- 30 Supernova Remnants
- 7617 Galaxies
- 96 Asterisms
- 6 Other |
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| (total DSO's: 10176) |
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| Have you ever given presentations or lectures on observing? |
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Yes, I did and I still enjoy doing it.    |
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| Can I contact you with questions regarding my telescope or other equipment? |
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Yes, definitely. I like to help and I believe I can tell you almost everything about the use of Autostars, NexStars or SynScans.
As I said earlier, I'm not pretending to know all there is to know. However, I do dare to say I understand a bit of telescopes, especially the GOTO
systems of Meade, Celestron, Orion and Synta. |
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| I have no idea where to point my telescope and what to observe! Any suggestions? |
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| Sure! Send me an e-mail with some information about your location and your equipment and I'll see what I can do
to help. |
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