… 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
Given our predilection to trying new things around here (as opposed to say, oh, the local pro-football team) we’re trying out a new PDF embed and share process from Adobe called, surprisingly enough, SHARE. Of course it is in beta, so it may or may not work. If it does, what you will see below…
What is the mission of NASA? No — Seriously, what is NASA’s mission? Is it to be the lead Agency for exploration in the fields of aeronautics and space? Discovering new technologies, opening new vistas of engineering and scientific knowledge for further exploration and utilization by US industry and the free nations of the world?…
Every so often one needs to benchmark progress – and as halting as the US space program has been (and apparently will continue to be for sometime to come) progress is being made. Witness the almost non-chalant nature of the EVAs this week as part of STS-117’s mission to the ISS to deliver and install…
Forty years ago, man had slipped the gravitational pull that had kept him shackled  in orbit around his home planet, and boldly struck out for the Moon.  Forty years ago, in a live broadcast on Christmas Eve  for the ages, he sent back stunning images of his world and our perspective was forever changed: William…
Lots of press these past few days over China’s ASAT test/demonstration vs. a defunct FY-1C weather satellite. Some may ask why the big deal — space after all, is not the province of but a few privileged nations and the target satellite was theirs, so why the concern? In a word, debris. The rather violent…
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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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