Dear fellow hobby astronomers,
I am writing this still under the impression of an extraordinary dark side location south west of Windhoek, Namibia. The Guest farm we visited is Hakos Farm close to the Gamsberg mountain at a height of 1850m with incredible clear and transparent skies. Me and my astronomy friend Martin traveled 2 weeks ago from Frankurt to Windhoek, took a 4x4 Landrover and drove the 2h to Hakos Farm where we got a very warm welcome from the new hosts. Since April 24 the farm is run by 2 couples. The old hosts are retired now. Food and accomodation were just brillant and the evening conversations at the dinner table unforgettable. At the time me and my friend joined we had visitors from Israel, Russia, Austria, China, France,Germany and Switzerland. Every evening at dinner time we assembled at the table and had lively discussions and travel reports from the new arrivals. After dinner me and my friend went to the observatory we had rented (Henning Sternwarte) and decided which telescope we will chose for tonight´s imaging. The options where a RC 10" f8; Newton 800mm f4 or a Newton 1200mm f4. All telescopes where properly collimated. The mount in the obs was a 10m GM2000 which run flawlessly. During our stay we imaged some 40+ targets under the night sky, most of them were galaxies 
. All in all I can only praise our hosts for such an extraordinlary experience under a bortle 1 sky! Especially Jürgen was a superb support for all technical issues we encountered. Always helpful and quick he could fix our network problems with the 10m and our PC. Doro was one of our hosts she could read minds when we arrived after a long night of imaging we got instandly our coffee and continental breakfast. Thanks to all the staff at Hakos Farm for 2 fantastic weeks with you. I will definitely return with my family as I wish that they will have the same experience I had. To finalize I have attached a picture from M 20, imaged with the Newton 1200mm f4 at Henning Sternwarte, Hakos Farm 2nd July 2024. The image is a stack of 4h LRGB data processed in Pixinsight. enjoy and clear nights, Thomas
photo can be found in the gallery.
Edited by Benbow100, 13 July 2024 - 06:47 AM.
