Category: Star-gazing-location

The Great Orion Nebula from La Palma

/ Carsten / Leave a comment
The Great Orion Nebula (M42) - 2017/02/02

Recently I took this image of the Great Orion Nebula from La Palma / Spain. Actually it was just a test of my equipment. I did not align the mount and hence the guiding was miserable. I only took some frames with the IR filter with different exposure times. Still, in the end the result was much better than I expected. I love the La Palma sky! 🙂 The image is also available in full resolution here.

Date2017/02/02
LocationLa Palma / Spain
ObjectThe Great Orion Nebula
CameraAtik383L+
Guidingyes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG
Telescope8" GSO Newtonian
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling0°C
Luminance4x 5s, 7x 15s, 9x 75s, 7x 150s, 5x 300s, 2x 600s, all bin: 1x1
Red-
Green-
Blue-
Dark-
Flat10x
Total exposure~1h15m

Clear skies!

Last updated: June 16, 2022 at 13:20 pm

Sunset on Roque de Los Muchachos on La Palma

/ Carsten / 1 Comment
William Herschel Telescope (WHT) after sunset, Roque de Los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain

To me, sunset at Roque de Los Muchachos creates a special atmosphere which is hard to describe. Probably this is something what especially people addicted to astronomy can understand. When the sun crosses the horizon the different telescope domes open up and the first stars become visible. While many people are sitting at home in front of their TV great things happen up here – far off the world 🙂

Many different telescopes from many different nations are located up here at Roque de Los Muchachos. Here is just a subset of those I recognized so far:

As far as I experienced, the northern part of the observatory is not reachable by car – at least there are some “Staff only” signs on the road. However, there is a small path which leads up to the Puente Nueva peak. If you park the car at 28°45’46.5″N 17°52’29.1″W right beside the road, walking up there takes only about 15-20 minutes. From there one has a great view on this part of the observatory!

Clear skies!

Last updated: June 17, 2022 at 21:07 pm

Star-gazing at Lake Garda at Appartamenti Agrituristici Agribaldo

/ Carsten / 1 Comment
Clear sky above Appartamenti Agrituristici Agribaldo

Around new moon in September 2014 I visited Appartamenti Agrituristici Agribaldo (https://www.agribaldo.it) close to Lake Garda for a few days and nights.

They offer an apartment with kitchen, bath, bedroom, garden and a wide free area around the building for up to 4 persons for a fair price. But the most important thing is that is is pretty dark there. The good thing is that is is not far away from Lake Garda and depending on the weather you can decide if you want to spend your holiday at night watching the sky – or – at day with e.g. hiking, cycling or climbing.

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