About me
Hi and welcome to my site! I am a thirty-two year old consultant currently living in Nieuwenrode, Belgium. I grew up near the historical city of Bruges. Following my education where I obtained the degree of Bachelor in Computer Sciences I moved to the province of Antwerp for job related reasons. These days I am working as a Senior Performance Management Architect at element61 (Business Intelligence & Performance Management) . My main focus point is Performance Management, using a wide variety of tools like Cognos, Business Objects, Datastage and Informatica Powercenter.
My main interest in astronomy is CCD-photography. Mainly to serve that purpose I acquired a used 10 inch f6.3 Meade LX200 SCT in March 2000. In April 2001 I purchased a Starlight Express MX7C CCD-camera and the STAR 2000 guiding module. When I moved to Willebroek a small extension of the house was modified to house the observatory. The observatory was a great improvement with fixed polar alignment, equipment always ready to use … Not only the observatory was new to me, but I was also a novice at imaging and image processing as well. Two years later the MX7C was replaced by a monochrome version: the Starlight SXV-H9 to facilitate supernova hunting. Currently I replaced the SXV-H9 with an SBIG ST10XME. This camera offers a larger chip and about 30% more sensitivity. The camera uses a SBIG CFW-8 motorized filter wheel with Astrondon filters. Meanwhile the LX200 was sold and replaced by a Gemini G41 mount and Celestron 11 telescope. The G41 is a very solid mount showing an impressive total periodic error of 8 arc seconds. It can handle a Celestron 11 without any effort. But then again, there went the Celestron 11. The C11 was replaced by the Vixen VMC260, a Maksutov Cassegrain of exceptional quality. The Vixen VMC260 uses an Optec TCFS for accurate automatic focusing. Currently my telescope are homeless as we are constructing a house. They hope to find a new place in a brand-new observatory in a couple of months...
I am also an active participant of the VVS Campaign for Dark Skies Belgium. This group tries to improve the night-skies in Belgium and is an affiliate of the International Dark Sky Association. We are fighting for better skies and less light pollution. One of our main gaols is to change government-policy. We also have a lot of local projects running with excellent results. We are achieving very good results, unfortunately too little people are aware of this huge problem... Late 2006 I became chairman of this group. I hope I will be able to continue and succeed in what my predecessor started twelve years ago. Enjoy browsing this site !
