… 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
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…
Truly a watershed event – story here.
Comes word over night of an apparently successful attempt by Iran to place a satellite in orbitusing the Safir-2 space launch vehicle (SLV). The Safir (“Ambassador”) was ingeniously developed as part of Iran’s growing rocket and missile program and has direct links to its attempts to develop extended range missiles in the IRBM and ultimately,…
Requirement: 1) place a satellite in orbit during the IGY; 2) accomplish a scientific experiment in orbit; 3) track the satellite and ensure its attainment of orbit. Because of an ongoing classified program to put reconnaissance satellites in orbit (Project WS-117 using Air Force Thor MRBM’s – which later became the Korona-series of reconnaissance…
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…
20 July 1969 102:42:08 Duke: Roger. Copy. (Pause) Eagle, Houston. You’re Go for landing. Over. 102:42:13 Armstrong (on-board): Okay. 3000 at 70. 102:42:17 Aldrin: Roger. Understand. Go for landing. 3000 feet. 102:42:19 Duke: Copy. 102:42:19 Aldrin: Program Alarm. (Pause) 1201 102:42:24 Armstrong: 1201. (Pause) (On-board) Okay, 2000 at 50. 102:42:25 Duke: Roger. 1201 alarm. (Pause)…
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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