observatory

Location

Lesve - Profondeville
(Belgium)
WGS84 coordinates
North 50d 22' 38.4"
East 4d 47' 37.1"
Google Map

Construction

Observatory construction
started in February 2004.

main interests

Astronomy

Variable stars
Publications
as author or co-author PowerPoint Presentations

Gardening

visit our garden,
snow in December 2010

Others

Visit my wife website, she works for the preservation of wolves. canislupusonline.net

In Memory of Didier Ledoux

Didier was one of my best friend, he was teacher for kids in Bukavu RDC. In 1987 he wrote for them a book describing the history of Earth from the origin to prehistory.
Histoire de la petite planète bleue des origines à la préhistoire

introduction

DPP Observatory is a private observatory, located in Lesve (Belgium), a small village close to Namur. Astronomy has been a hobby for over 25 years. Since 2003, I became more involved in Variable star observation. To operate a CCD camera, I decided to build a small observatory in the backyard. The fiberglass observatory dome "Home-Dome" is seated on brick and wood structure.

LesveDome

A custom software was designed to control the dome rotation. Now this software, named LesveDomeNet, is released as a shareware. LesveDomeNet is an cheap DIY solution to slave the dome to the telescope. It is currently used by more than 280 users all over the world. LesveDomeNet can be also used to operate a Roll Off Roof (ROR)

LesvePhotometry

I also written LesvePhotometry and PeriodicVSOplanner to help Variable Star Observers.
LesvePhotometry is an automatic photometry software very useful for time-series reduction.

LesvePhotometry versions from (V 1.2.0.41) retrieve UCAC4 catalog information.

affiliations

AAVSO American Association of Variable Star Observers
CBA Center for Backyard Astrophysics
SAS Society For Astronomical Sciences
ACA Astronomie Centre Ardenne (Belgian local club)

Lesve meteorite

It is in a Lesve orchad the last meteorite fell in Belgium on April 12th,1896 and failed to kill the son of owner. Meteorite was a chondrite with olivine and weighting 2 kg. This fragment of the meteorite is part of The Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences collection.