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My Moon animations wanted to be improved further, so I added two missing things: The libration - the wobble of the Moon - and the earthshine - the sunlight reflected from Earth. The former is already working quite well, the latter could be further strengthened.

In October 2024, Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS C/2023 A3 could be seen over Cologne, shortly after sunset. Wolfgang Tubis photographed it at three days from the right bank of the Rhine River.

I haven't had much contact with artificial intelligence so far, but I try it again from time to time. Usualy the conversations get a bit out of hand, because in a way AI has a character that's a bit exhausting.

A short and unfinished video that was made during the search for a Povray rocket launch site. I have no idea if the macro collection behind it will ever be finished, but I still wanted to present the first test flight in advance as a teaser.

Till now I have deposited pictures and videos of planets rendered with Povray in the rubric astronomy, but it is slowly getting crowded there. So I moved them to a new one and added old star field animations.

I created a lite version of the current HYG star catalogue with 120,000 entries. It contains fewer columns, reduced accuracies and is half the size of the original. The result can be downloaded as a SQL import and in the form of Povray arrays.

I have written a modest tutorial on how to build realistic-looking planets with Povray using two images and 60 lines of code. If high-resolution image material is used, the results look better than photographs taken by amateur astronomers with the most expensive equipment in the world.

Finally I have a decent Povray package ready for release. It contains a macro that uses high-resolution images to create an almost photorealistic image of the Milky Way. Only a few lines of code, but it really makes a difference.

Two new pages for my somewhat empty Povray section, which deal with the topics of tutorials and freely accessible script-collections. Both listings are still small, but if I find new websites, I will add them. Let's see where that ends.

I have already published some renderings of our Earth-Moon, last month I tried the same with planet Mars. NASA has also put high-resolution maps of Mars on the Internet, with the help of which I created a movie and close-ups of interesting areas.

I rarely succeed in good design, my private websites have always looked mediocre. If the emotive word "responsive" is added, frustration is inevitable. But with a bit of luck, I have now successfully put the worst behind me.

After creating two HD movies of the dark side last month, it was now the turn of maps, global views and images of craters. It has some really beautiful areas on the far side of the moon, which I wasn't aware of before.

In the last few months, some Povray packages have been finished in a usable way, with the help of which I was able to prettify the journey of my Tussi space probe.

Small comparison between an analog image of the Lunar crater Plato from the 90s, and a recent rendering of the same area. The difference is quite ... fiercely.

It is not really dark at all. On the contrary, due to countless craters and the lack of mare it is even brighter than the side faced to Earth. Two rerendered videos - one in 2D and the other in 3D - should confirm this.

Several rockets have been launched, several probes have landed on the moon, a few eclipses have taken place, and much more.

On Saturday March 29, 2025, a partial solar eclipse will take place after 11 a.m. Something similar happened in 2011, which I photographed from Cologne.

In the night of May 10th to 11th, 2024, a solar storm produced auroras so violent that they could be seen as far south as Germany and even further south.

From two flights of the tireless Mars helicopter Ingenuity I downloaded the raw data from the cameras and created videos from them. One flight was over the backshell of the rover, the other an altitude test.

Two more videos of the Moon are ready. Both show the crater Copernicus in different magnifications.

In the last few days I've been playing around with Povray again, realistic pictures and videos of the moon have come out. Global views, enlargements around Plato crater, and of course stereo versions.