Our large telescope is a professional instrument. On the one hand, the optics are “active”; adjusting weights at the primary mirror ensure the correct mirror position at any viewing direction and distance...
Our friend and supporter of the first hour Gerhard Wirths passed away on April 27. He was one of the first to get involved after the presentation of the project plans for the observatory and to become active for its...
Our main mirror needed a cleaning before installation. This is what one does with water. For this purpose we lined the transport box, dissolved dishwashing detergent without additives and filled the pool with water...
Currently, we are concentrating our work on our large telescope. After the electromechanical control of the mirror doors has been realized, the mounting of the main mirror on an air bag as well as its sensor system has...
At the moment, we are concentrating our work entirely on completing our main instrument. Currently, this includes the cooling unit of the main mirror, the electric mirror doors and especially the telescope control...
Completely surprisingly we have lost a friend. As an astrophysicist, Uwe dedicated his interest to the stars, as a high school teacher to the next generation and as a longtime member of STScI to the development of the...
A nice photographic target in the winter sky is the Rosette Nebula in the constellation Unicorn. The cosmic cloud of gas is excited to glow by the open star cluster in the center. The area can be called a “cosmic...
The Small Dumbbell Nebula (Messier 76) is a faint (10.1mag) planetary nebula. The name comes from the similarity with the Large Dumbbell Nebula (Messier 27). It is located in the constellation Perseus at a distance of...
Of course our school observatory is also affected by the Covid 19 pandemic. On the one hand, the school lab is ready for operation as an extracurricular learning place. On the other hand, we unfortunately had to cancel...
The planet Mars is currently in a very favorable position in the night sky. You can discover it shortly after sunset as a brightly shining, reddish “star” in the constellation Pisces in the east. It stands...
Our member Frank Bohlscheid is an experienced astrophotographer and regularly shows what is possible with a small telescope. He uses a Newton telescope with an aperture of 20cm (even smaller than at our school...
The Cocoon Nebula (IC 5146) in the constellation Cygnus (above) has an apparent extension of about 10 arc minutes. This is one third of the diameter of the full moon. It is about 3000 light-years away from Earth, so its...
