Good day from Castricum, the Netherlands

[inFINNity Deck]

Hello all,

I am Nicolàs de Hilster from the Netherlands and became a SL-member last week to answer an old post on a Bird-Jones telescope. I just found this welcome section and decided to introduce myself... better late then never... 😉

Two years ago I finally dared to step into astronomy, even though I had been tempted for well over four decades. With help from my wife Ria, brother in law Adri, and a few astro-friends (one of which is RobRob on this forum), I built my own domed observatory on top of our library. It is named InFINNity Deck after grandnephew Finn. I mainly use the observatory for astrophotography, but also for visual observing, education and for historic research (there is an excellent 1490mm f/30 Galilean-type telescope in it). The other scopes are a SkyWatcher Esprit 150ED, Celestron C11 XLT EdgeHD, Lunt LS80THA single stack, which all ride together on a 10Micron GM3000HPS mount. For imaging I use the following cameras: ZWO ASI1600MM Cool, ZWO ASI174MM and ZWO ASI290MC. For visual observing I am lucky to have a wide range of TeleVue Ethos and PanOptic eye-pieces to my disposal (and a few singlet concave Galilean-type eyepieces). For more info on myself and the stuff I do, see my website (several links in this post already refer to it).

Clear skies!

Nicolàs

 

[Robindonne]

Een Hallootje van een nieuweling.   Welcome.  
 

edit.  Wow. Looked at The website. Love the woodworking😍

Edited June 18, 2020 by Robindonne

[cletrac1922]

Nicholas

First of all welcome from Land Down Under

Very impressive dome

John

[sloz1664]

Hi Nicolàs and a very warm welcome to the Lounge 🙂

What an amazing observatory. Your vision, planning and installation is beyond words. I salute you 

Steve

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by sloz1664

[Floater]

Welcome. Glad you said hello. That’s an awesome setup you have there. 😳

[davhei]

Welcome Nicolas and thank your for that fascinating introduction. 

[inFINNity Deck]

Thanks guys for your warm and overwhelming welcome! 👋🙂

Nicolàs

 

[bingevader]

Welcome!

When things have eased off a bit, you'll have to arrange some star parties!

[inFINNity Deck]

The first is organised around our own star: Zonnekijkdag (Sun Watching Day, scroll down to see a map with cooperating observatories). It is on 5 July and you guys are perfectly welcome, provided we keep enough social distance. The observatory will be open all day, but you will need to register in advance, so we can schedule the amount of visitors.

Nicolàs

[banjaxed]

Hi and welcome to SGL.

[Waddensky]

Hi Nicolàs and welcome! That's a really wonderful observatory! I love your outreach activities, nice to spread the word, isn't it?

Groet van een Oud-Castricummer,

Koen

[inFINNity Deck]

Hi Koen,

it sure is nice to spread the word!

Nicolàs

[RT65CB-SWL]

Hi @inFINNity Deck / Nicolas and welcome to SGL. 

[laudropb]

Hello and a warm welcome to the SGL.

[Dave Lloyd]

Hi Nicolas, welcome. 

[HollyHound]

Hi Nicholas,

Welcome to the forum. That is a fantastic observatory, very impressive 👍😊

Cheers

Gary

[carastro]

Wow, what an introduction, and what a fantastic observatory.  With your profession and background you sound ideally suited to the technicalities of Astronomy and Astrophotography.

I'd love to know what your skies are like where you are located.

I have Dutch friends in Amsterdam and Ede (formerly they were in Rotterdam) and visited the Netherlands many times in the past.  But I don't think I went out to the area where you live. 

Carole  

[inFINNity Deck]

Hi Carole,

thanks for your kind reply.

Yes, I was surprised how similar my profession and (amateur) astronomy are. In both cases one has a central computer with plenty peripherals that all need to communicate with each other and require some sort of calibration (and all break down or just stop communicating when least convenient 😞). Even the physics we have to deal with are quite similar. In hydrography we need to know the speed of sound in water to properly place observations of the ensonified underwater bottom (similar to what we do with refraction), while transducer size has a direct relation with footprint size (the equivalent to the Airy-disc), just to name a few.

The skies here are not too dissimilar to what you are used to: plenty clouds and light pollution. Still we have some 30 days per year for deep-sky imaging and plenty others for solar observations and planetary work.

Might you ever be around: we live at a 25 minute direct train ride from Amsterdam. The same applies to former Castricummer Koen: if you are in the neighbourhood, you are most welcome to visit.

Nicolàs

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Welcome from up north in the Netherlands ("Stad", a.k.a. Groningen)

[ApophisAstros]

Welcome to the Toil and Trouble of Astronomy and nice to see you on SGL, any chance of a guided tour inside the Dome?

Roger

[RT65CB-SWL]

Hi @inFINNity Deck / Nicolas.

Just want to say that your website is an excellent source of information.
I spent about 2+ hours looking at it yesterday.

Just a thought. Maybe you could add a 'virtual' tour for the future, if you
have not considered it.

 

[inFINNity Deck]

1 hour ago, apophisOAS said:

...any chance of a guided tour inside the Dome?

Roger

Hi Roger (and others),

Yes, you're welcome, but I presume you would like to have a virtual tour? I do have some video's on YouTube, which can be accessed through my website: http://www.dehilster.info/astronomy/time-lapses.php

The last two days I have been busy expanding my site with an equipment section: http://www.dehilster.info/astronomy/equipment.php

The main page of that is still empty, but in the left-hand menu the first few pieces of equipment are added, each leading to more informative pages.

Nicolàs

 

Edited June 19, 2020 by inFINNity Deck

[PeterCPC]

Hello Nicolàs and welcome.

Peter

[ronl]

Hello Nicolàs, and welcome to the community, hope you enjoy your time here in SGL,

see you around the forums.

Clear Sky's.

[Dr Strange]

Hello Nicolàs and welcome to SGL! That is a very nice observatory!