Welcome to this site dedicated to Astronomy

The reason that I have set up this site is that I have a long time passion for astronomy. It probably started with the Apollo 8 flight around the Moon during Christmas 1968, and the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon in July 1969.

In 1973 I got my first little telescope, a 40mm zoom refractor that enlarged between 13 and 40 times. With this telescope I could see the moon, double stars, the moons of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, and I also could see the planet Uranus. I also used it to observe the solar and lunar eclipses during that period. During my days at school I swallowed popular books and magazines as shown below:

I later went to university to study physics and astronomy. In 1984 I graduated in astrophysics on the University of Utrecht. My MSc paper (1MB) was on coronal physics, more specifically on the possibility of ultra thin coronae. At the time I was also extremely interested in general relativity, neutron stars, and  black holes and attended an advanced programme on
general relativity led by prof. Gerard 't Hooft (Nobel Prize winner Physics 1999).

  

After graduation I found a job outside the world of science and went to work for a major oil company. In the
nineties I worked in the Sultanate of Oman, and became fascinated by the extremely dark skies in this beautiful country. With other enthousiastic people, all keenly interested in astronomy, we  founded the Ras al Hamra Astronomical Society (RAHAS) that organised star parties, and lectures, several of which were given by me.

On this website I will post picture of eclipses, and other subjects of my personal interest. The site is not aimed to become a full resource on astronomy. There are many sites who already cover the subject excellently. I will focus on eclipses, occultations and I recently started collecting olds maps showing solar eclipses.

Hans van der Meer

Below is an old picture of me (sitting at the back) during my days as an astronomy student. The picture was taken in 1984 during a student dinner party  with the well known Utrecht astronomer professor Kees de Jager.

Graduation ceremony  at Utrecht university on July 2^nd, 1984. I receive my astrophysics degree  from dr. T. de Groot. Also present at the ceremony were dr. Hans Heintze (right) and professor Gerard 't Hooft (left).