Ngc7000.org
Title
Ole's Astronomy Site
Contact
- n/a
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- Rijswijk n/a
- BE 2286 MS
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- +31.703403719
Description
I have been interested in astronomy since childhood but until recently I was a typical 'armchair' astronomer reading about things like space exploration and astrophysics. Actually buying a telescope and having a look at the sky myself had never really occurred to me. One reason was that I considered it hopeless to use a telescope for anything useful where I live due to terrible light pollution, bad weather, obstructed views etc.
However one day in September 1999 I visited a compatriot, Jan Andersen also living in Rijswijk. Like me he had seen the total solar eclipse in France and he wanted to show me his video from the eclipse. He had also been lucky and seen the totality although through thin clouds. Later in the evening he gave me a look at Jupiter and Saturn in his 80 mm refractor. I was amazed to see Saturn like a 3D object and decided that I wanted to have a telescope myself just for watching the planets. A few weeks later I bought the Celestron G-5 and I have had a lot of fun with that scope since then.
My observation location is the tiny backyard of my house. It is certainly not ideal with buildings all the way around. Especially directions between east and south are badly obstructed. Also heat from buildings significantly affects the local seeing. As said, the light pollution here is terrible. I would rate my sky as Bortle Class 8 (City sky) at best, see Sky & Telescope, Feb. 2001. During the best nights limiting magnitude can be as good as 4.5 but more typically it is less than 4. Mostly I can't see more than 3 stars in the Little Dipper. The image to the right shows a satellite image of the Netherlands by night. I live in the middle of the 'overexposed' area.
