Living on my own since 1992  in Zwolle.  My main hobby is Astrophotography, especially Solar imaging. But I like to take up skateboarding again soon.  And I like birdwatching, drawing and hanging out with friends.

 

I do all of my observations at my balcony.  It has a good view from NE to the West.  Just south of the city centre and with the railway station nearby to the west.  Normally, we got a lot of light pollution, but on my balcony, without direct lights from the neighbours, it can be reasonably dark at night…on good summer nights, the Milky way is still visible from Cassiopeia through Scutum and even M13 can be spotted with the naked eye!  For Solar imaging,  I mostly like to use the early hours, just after sunrise, before the Sun heats up the atmosphere.

I started with stargazing in 1999 with a Bresser Galaxia 114mm reflector, saw a lot of Messier objects with it and learned my ways to the skies.  Also my first sight of Saturn was…very memorable!

In 2000, I bought my first serious scope: an 8” Schmidt-Cassegrain from Meade on a LX10 fork mount.  Perfect for visual observing, but too shaky for good photography.  That year, I also bought a computer and a Philips Vesta Pro webcam.  First webcam light was made at April 14th, 2001.  Jupiter and Ganymede’s shadow @ F/10.  What a happy boy!  First, I thought I had dust on the chip ;)  A lot of experimenting with Iris and some years later with Registax en Photoshop followed. 2002 was a good Saturn and Jupiter year, 2003 was Mars the object of most interest.  In 2004, I got a modified Philips ToUcam740K from Matthias Meijer and used it that year a lot on Deepsky targets. Never did a lot of Sun or Moon, though...

 

2005 was a Mars year again and I learned how to image with LRGB filters too.  In that year, I bought my first Coronado PST at the ATT in Essen, Germany.  Still did some Planet- and Deepsky imaging, but mostly the Sun.  And that hasn’t changed yet!   In 2006, Matthias modified me another webcam, a Philips 740K with b/w chip, RAW en LongExposure mods and aircooling.  This is the cam I’m still using, when broadcasting SolarLive.  In that year, I had my greatest experience…the total solar eclipse in Ciraly, Turkey. 2007 and 2008 were solarimaging years mostly.  In 2008, I was asked to try out and review some Lunt solarscopes for Aquarius.  Also purchased a 150mm F/8 refractor for modding a PST into a 130mm F/10 Ha solarscope.  At the end of the summer, that year, broadcasting of SolarLive saw it’s first light on Yahoo. Now still stationed at Justin’s.  In 2009 I bought a Skywatcher 150mm F/8 refractor, a NEQ6pro mount and a DMK31 camera.