An astronomer in Texas – 8
–part 8 of the essay An astronomer in Texas– Our visibility was extremely poor in the following night, i.e. while we couldn’t detect a cloud with our sky surveillance camera, stars appeared to be much fainter than they should be. Since we wanted to do spectroscopy where every photon counts, this was a huge problem. […]
Infrared ash and full moon
Sometimes, strange things occur in astronomy and this was one of those nights. While observing in Texas, we realized that our instruments recorded almost no light but the sky was cloud-free. I therefore went outside to take infrared images which is when we finally realized what was going on. Seen here, the pink glow in […]
An astronomer in Texas – 9
–part 9 of the essay An astronomer in Texas– The next day, with an early end of the night due to the ash particles, we decided to take a walk and explore the surrounding area. The so-called red edge makes every plant appear very bright in the infrared and cacti are no exception – they […]
An astronomer in Texas – 12
–part 12 of the essay An astronomer in Texas– A more zoomed-in photo reveals supernumaries. Rainbows are created by water drops of equal size, where light gets reflected inside the drop and, depending on the wavelength, exits the drop at a certain angle. However, if there are several similar-sized types of water drops in the […]
An astronomer in Texas – 14
–part 14 of the essay An astronomer in Texas– With this photo, our observing run concludes. We collected data in sufficient amounts to keep ourselves busy until next year and enjoyed the scenic route back to the airport, the road leading up into the magnificient mountain pass below the clouds.
One year on Mt Wendelstein -1
–part 1 of the essay One year on Mt. Wendelstein– Astronomy and infrared go hand in hand. I am an astrophysicist who is working at the Wendelstein observatory in the Bavarian alps, where I am in charge of our multi-band camera 3KK which can see simultaneously in the optical and infrared. This, of course, inspires […]
One year on Mt Wendelstein – 3
–part 3 of the essay One year on Mt. Wendelstein– If the weather conditions are just right, inversion can occur. This means that the mountain pierces the cloud layer, leading to amazing observing conditions for astronomy. More important to this essay, however, is that it gives photos a surreal touch as everything seems to be […]
One year on Mt Wendelstein – 4
–part 4 of the essay One year on Mt. Wendelstein– Metereological inversion during the day can look amazing. One of my favourite parts on Mt. Wendelstein is getting up after a long night of observations and taking a first look outside the windows. This was one of those moments. I immediately decided to get dressed […]
One year on Mt Wendelstein – 5
–part 5 of the essay One year on Mt. Wendelstein– Sometimes, things can happen that are hard to explain for a moment. Here, not only did I see a mountain shadow, there appeared to be an inverted shadow above it, forming an hourglass-like structure. One can even see a small color change between the upper […]
One year on Mt Wendelstein – 6
–part 6 of the essay One year on Mt. Wendelstein– While solar eclipses are a class of their own, lunar eclipses are exciting events as well. During last summer, Europe witnessed the longest lunar eclipse of the century and naturally we had to observe it. Right after the main event ended, I used infrared to […]
One year on Mt Wendelstein – 7
–part 7 of the essay One year on Mt. Wendelstein– Summer was over and autumn was closing in. This usually shows the most scenic sunsets and golden hours and this here was no exception. Again, infrared provides better clarity.
One year on Mt Wendelstein – 8
–part 8 of the essay One year on Mt. Wendelstein– Of course, when you are an astronomer, you should do astrophotography from time to time. Armed with a small tracker, I photographed a part of Scorpius with Antares, its central red bright star. Thanks to full spectrum, I could increase the amount of light for […]
