Bryssinck Erik
I live in Kruibeke, Belgium and I was born in the year A.Einstein died, I have great respect for A.Einstein. In my younger years I was particularly interested in space, since I was 14 years old when the first moon landing took place, i sat glued to the TV. After the traditional family, cottage, garden, children (not in that respective order), there was no time left to me to keep working on it further. After the children grew came back more free time. With the eclipse of 1999, my interest was aroused again and now more specifically in the direction of astronomy, observing itself.
I began quickly with astrophotography, particularly with converting webcams, building an astro-CCD camera, specifically the Genesis camera. Honestly, I was quickly bored with that astrophotography and wanted something more to do what a contribution to science could mean. More about me: visit: http://www.astronomie.be/erik.bryssinck/aboutme.html
The BRIXIIS observatory is a privat astronomical observatory that you can find in Kruibeke, Belgium. About 10 km South of Antwerp near the river 'De Schelde”. The observatory is running and operated by me (Erik Bryssinck). What is BRIXIIS meaning ? BRIXIIS is the oldest spelling found of my surname (ca.1293).
BRIXIIS was builded in 2005 and houses an Orion Optics 0.4-m diameter f/3.8 telescope initial on a 10Micron GM2000 Qci mount and upgraded to a ASA DDM85 standard mount in june 2013. In june 2012 was the SBIG ST-10XME camera upgraded to a scientific SBIG STL-6303E camera. The SBIG ST-10XME camera was swapped with a TRIUS SX814 CCD-camera for spectroscopy with a L200 spectrograph and C11 telescope. End 2017 BRIXIIS was expanded with an extra dome dedicated for spectroscopy wich houses now a C11 telescope, L200 spectrograph, Trius SX814 all on my older 10Micron GM2000 Qci mount.
In the same year 2005, a couple of months before starting of building the observatory, I started with observing comets and do Af(rho)-measurements on comets in collaboration for CARA-team of Italy. http://cara.uai.it
The observatory was started with a program for Minor planets (astrometry) in 2009 and the observatory was allocated with observatory-code B96 by the Minor Planet Center on april 2009. More about my observatory: http://www.astronomie.be/erik.bryssinck/observatory.html
The main work for BRIXIIS observatory is (in order of priority):
- Afρ measurements in broadband and narrowband of comets in collaboration for CARA-project (since 2005)
- Cometary astrometry (by use of Astrometrica software – since 2009)
- Cometary photometry for the Spanish Cometas Observadores by use of the FOCAS-II software (since 2009)
- Spectroscopy starting from sept. 2014
- Occasionally observing objects mentioned on the NEOCP (Near Earth Object Confirmation Page of the Minor Planet Center – since 2010)
- Occasionally sky-survey for search of NEO & comets (since 2010)
- High resolution spectroscopy for Be-stars and other interesting objects (since 2018)
At the moment (mid 2014) , I observed nearly 190 different comets and have more than thousand of CCD-images of comets. But this is not the main goal to get ‘numbers’. In collaboration with CARA-project, my observations and resulting Afρ parameter are used in scientific papers, which you can find a few on my website : http://www.astronomie.be/erik.bryssinck/publications.html Link to my website: http://www.astronomie.be/erik.bryssinck/
Local societies
Belgian astronomy association (VVS) / VSRUG - public observatory of university of Ghent / CARA - Italian consortium: Cometary ARchive for Afrho
