NASA, Discovery's last flight

I was privileged and lucky last night to catch an awesome sight - the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle Discovery passing overhead at the same time. They were separated by about a thumb's width (at arm's length) with the ISS chasing Discovery having just undocked. They only look like fast moving stars, even with 10x binoculars, but when you know what it is it's brilliant!

The only sight that beat this was when the shuttle (iirc it was Atlantis) passed over Ireland in 2009 - we could see it very very brightly, chased by the orange fuel tank - that was just slightly more impressive.

Anyway, I've been on a space/orbit/NASA "high" since, and I found this amazing video thanks to the guys at boards.ie - you might enjoy it!



Thanks NASA!

Photographing the International Space Station

From Earth, of course. My new tripod and I have been trying to photograph the ISS. My first image was a bit shaky looking and puzzled me.



I reckoned it was either camera shake from the mirror movement - but the camera's 2s timer is designed to move the mirror, then capture the image, so that probably wasnt it. Then I thought it's what the ISS does - that didn't last long. It was hardly atmospheric either, so I thought it must have been the deck - not the world's most secure surface, so as I walked on it, the tripod was moving.

The ground was to be the next surface so, and with a pass at 1830 I set up, pointed and took the following. Sorry about the poor crop.


Looks a lot better. Lesson learned. I may try again - there's another pass in about half an hour.

Thanks to http://iss.astroviewer.net for an excellent, easy to use website for timing the ISS passes for your location.

Later on, I got a pic of the ISS trail just as the station passed into Earth's shadow...

Free christmas recipes and some sciency news that caught my eye

This morning I was listening to the radio , and heard an ad for a Christmas recipe booklet from Bord Bia. So, I went had a google, and found it, as you do. Thought I'd share it with you, see if there's anything interesting in it - here it is (it is a pdf, so might take a sec to load)I might try the orange and chocolate ice-cream... sounds yummy.

2 bits of sciency/techy news I came across today that were interesting. A private company, SpaceX launched a spacecraft to Low Earth Orbit yesterday, and retrieved it from the ocean after re-entry. So they're well on the way to providing private launch capability for NASA, to feed the ISS, and presumably for other satellite customers. I think it's hugely impressive that a private company, without NASA's resources can make such a vehicle so successfully. From what I read, it seems that they have developed a simple, modular vehicle that will bring down the cost of bringing material to orbit. This is, it seems from the press release, intended to allow NASA to concentrate on other projects than feeding the ISS, particularly with the retirement of Space Shuttle. I'm sure there's more to come!

The other was the use of a 3d printer to bring an idea for an iphone cradle to production, fascinating! The thoughts of 3d print shops on your street corner, where you can "print off" a design you've made up yourself, or bought over the internet. It's all explained on the BBC news website.

Space Gazing

Well, I saw the shuttle after take off last week as it flew over Ireland. That was some sight!

Anyway, now that the International Space Station is on the tip of everyone's tongue, my helpful hint is that you can find out when it's passing you by logging onto www.heavens-above.com and inputting your location - it will then spit out times for all the objects that pass over you! Enjoy.