Located in an incredibly rich area of the Milky Way in Sagittarius, M8, the Lagoon Nebula, and M20, the Trifid Nebula are two of the most spectacular showcases in the entire night sky. This image is a combination of DSLR exposures taken in July 2005 and CCD exposures taken in August 2010. The DSLR exposures were taken with a Nikon D70 and were hand-guided at 483x because the autoguider did not work. The CCD exposures were taken with a QHY8pro and were hampered by strong gusts of wind. The 4.9" Wright-Newtonian was used for all exposures.

Howdii's report about the "Perseid Night" on August 12, 2010, which he spent at Oberleis, Lower Austria, with moderate results. Written in German.

Howdii spent a superb hour at the Hochbärneck, Lower Austria, observing some summer highlights. Read his Observation Report about that night. August 10, 2010, written in German.

I spent a good night of astrophotography at Ebenwaldhöhe, Lower Austria, from August 15-16, 2010. While taking a series of telescope-based images I found time to observe the beautiful nighttime environment and noticed some nice-looking trees in the vicinity which I used as foreground objects in two startrail photographs.

Howdii's interesting report about sky background brightness measurements which he took at various observation sites in the Weinviertel, in Lower Austria using a Sky Quality Meter-L. He spent a clear night driving around and taking these measurements to debunk those "starlight oasis" reports circulating in local media about Großmugl im Weinviertel.

Interested? Read for yourself: Messfahrt: Großmugl, Altenmarkt i.T., Oberleiser Berg, Schrick. August 9, 2010, written in German.

M63, the Sunflower Galaxy is a nice and bright example of a Sb/Sc flocculent spiral galaxy in Canes Venatici. Lots of background galaxies are visible in this image, including two edge-on discs behind the outer edge of M63 and a dwarf which is about to be "eaten" by M63 due to galaxy canibalism! Images taken on June 5, 2010, at Ebenwaldhöhe, Lower Austria with the 9.5" Newtonian. See also a 100% enlargement of this image.

Howdii wrote two new observation reports: Teleskoptreffen am Oberleiser Berg, June 11, 2010 and Kometennotiz C/2009 R1 McNaught, June 14, 2010. Both written in German.

The night of last Saturday to Sunday was the first real summer night of the year; it was a clear, warm and dry night. This image of the Southern Sky at Ebenwaldhöhe is actually a mosaic of 16 exposures which were taken on a fixed tripod using a Nikon 50mm 1:1.4 lens left fully open and an exposure time of only 10 seconds with my unmodified Nikon D40. In spite of the short exposure time, the Milky Way shows up well with lots of structure.

Two lunar image taken with the Imaging Source DBK 31AU03.AS planetary camera: The Southern End and Mare Imbrium - Northern Part, rendered in grayscale. Here I tested the software AviStack by Michael Theusner, which registers, stacks and processes movies, it which works well for large areas of the moon. In the Southern End picture, the most prominent feature just below the image's center is the crater Tycho, which is surrounded by a distinctive ray system forming long spokes that reach as long as 1,500 kilometers. In the Mare Imbrium picture, the Lunar Alps with their broad Alpine Valley above the center and Sinus Iridum near the left edge stand out well. The images were taken on April 24^th with the 9.5" Newtonian at primary focus during mediocre seeing conditions. The exposure was approx. 2000 x 1/92s.

Due to the current bad-weather period I found time to process some exposures which I created more than 3 years ago, in January 2007: van den Berg 93, also designated Sharpless 292, is the northwestern extension of IC 2177, the Seagull or Eagle Nebula. vdB 93 forms the "head" of the bird. I used the 9.5" Newtonian and the modified Canon 350D to capture the frames during an especially warm night (for January) at Ebenwaldhöhe, Lower Austria.

Howdii's observation report from May 12^th - a rare clear night in May 2010 which he was lucky to enough to catch. He observed some galaxies and other springtime telescopic highlights at Schrick, Lower Austria. Written in German.

A CCD image of NGC 2683, the UFO Galaxy, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Lynx seen at an oblique angle not far from edge-on. This image was taken using the 9.5" Newtonian and the QHY8pro camera. The observation site was Ebenwaldhöhe, Lower Austria.

My first-light image taken with the new Imaging Source DBK 31AU03.AS planetary camera: Crater Copernicus and Environment on the moon, rendered in grayscale. I used Registax to process the images, which were taken on April 24^th on the 9.5" Newtonian at primary focus during mediocre seeing conditions. The exposure was 1469 x 1/92s. The result is not superb, but ok for a first-light.

Howdii has written a report about his observations at Großmugl in the Weinviertel on Astronomy Day 2010. He finds some critical words on current media stories about Großmugl being the "best dark-sky observation site near town" and about its street lights being on "the most modern state of art"; both statements are not quite true. Written in German, April 2010.

Howdii's report about an excellent observation site in the Ötscherland/Lower Austria which we visited for the first time: Hochbärneck, April 17, 2010. Walter has added some photos for you to get an impression about the sky quality at this site. We had an excellent observation night in spite of the ashes of the vulcano Eyjafjallajökull which were supposedly polluting the sky. Written in German.

A CCD image of NGC 4236, a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Draco seen at an oblique angle not far from edge-on. This image was taken during our expedition to the Steyersberger Schwaig on April 8, 2010. The 9.5" Newtonian and the QHY8pro camera were used.

A new observation report by Howdii: Steyersberger Schwaig, April 8, 2010, a new observation site which we set out to explore. This is a first-experience report (written in German). We found good observing conditions at this site.