… 190 miles away as it were. Amazing the things amature astronomers can do these days. Latest example – take one Boston-area high school class, mix with the Clay Center Observatory‘s 25" telescope, a digital camera and adaptive optics and voila:
More on adaptive optics here
h/t: Chap and Danger Room
(Photos courtesy NASA) Beautiful…seriously, just beautiful… (Yes, we know the top shot is of Atlantis…)
The last of the 23-satellite Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites was lifted to orbit this past weekend on the newest heavy lift rocket in the US inventory. The Delta IV was developed as part of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program to replace the previous workhorse of US military and commercial heavy lift, the Titan-family. Consisting…
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"At a minimum, Washington should delay the planned 2010 retirement of the Space Shuttle until a new space plane can replace it, as a way to retain a deterring potential military capability. China’s unwillingness to comment on its military space plans, coupled with the Shenlong space plane, confirms its larger aversion to military transparency. The…
When all else fails – and your butt is on the line with a major PR catastrophe looming, it is best to man-up, square your shoulders and do your duty as organizational lead by assuming responsibility before The Big Guy…unless you are the head of Russia’s ROSKOSMOS space agency. Then you can hint darkly about…
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Not exactly backyard astronomy. This exercise took money and lots of it. The ISS pass was recorded at the diffraction limit of a 25 inch Ritchey-Cretien instrument (super expensive) and then the AO hardware. This total hardware cost is likely in the millions of dollars. Yje Clay center is an impressive installation that exceeds some of the instruments up the hill at the famous Lick Observatory here in SJ.
http://www.dexter-southfield.org/podium/default.aspx?t=11309
As a comparison, the most rabid amatuer imagers I know have total equipment budgets approaching $100K (mine is under $10K — all bundled with a medium diameter Schmidt Cassegrain scope, mount, and not including the Suburban to get it all out of town), and my observing results using eyeball, pencil and paper are pretty decent.
I do know some guy named “Sam” lots of money, who uses the best in adaptive optics, using still larger diameter telescopes, positioned at lower altitudes than ISS. Betcha he gets some great images of smaller detail than shown on Google Earth.
-SJBill