You don’t always have to expose objects thousands of light years away for hours to see interesting objects or events in space – sometimes you can stay in the astronomical front yard, and observe very fast...
Before it gets wet and cold outside, we continue to pursue our plans to digitize the observatory. In order to stay up to date as a place of learning and scientific institution, the three telescopes in our school lab are...
On Tuesday, 25.10. there was a partial solar eclipse over Central Europe – unfortunately for our region an almost complete cloud cover was announced. The research class 5c of the comprehensive school Waldbröl...
It is easy to think that the night sky in Oberberg is very dark. And indeed, measurements show that our region is not bad by Central European standards (). However, there can be local exceptions – like in...
A few days ago, the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore released a new image from the James Webb Space Telescope (see here). It shows spiral-shaped rings around the massive binary star Wolf-Rayet 140...
Unlike a private observatory, we operate a public school observatory. And it has to be operated safely for all astronomers and visitors. With the support of a state-approved safety officer who is well-disposed towards...
In our school lab, it is possible to make nocturnal observations of the sky without extensive effort. The telescopes are already completely installed on their mountings under their weather protection cubes and are...
At our observatory, clever young astronomers appear again and again, who have techniques that the old hands do not have on their screen. One of these colleagues has now shown us what he can do with his smartphone...
In old times, telescopes were positioned with so-called circular scales, which mapped the celestial coordinate system. The positioning accuracy was increased like a caliper with an angular vernier to then track the...
The announced electricity price increases seem to be having a positive effect on our evening skies at the moment. Many outdoor lights simply stay off. The darkness of the evening sky, which was already thought to be...
In August, we held a beginners’ course for interested teachers in our school lab. The first goal was the basic operation of the instruments. This included telescope control, taking color images with a digital...
In the middle of July we took our first own astrophotographs in the observatory. Before that, we had received an introduction to the controls of the telescope. After taking several pictures of the sun we were already a...
