Another view of Tranquilty Base.

Once again, another view of one of the Apollo sites is released from the new lower altitude of the LRO. You can easily see the boulder field that Neil had to dodge when landing in this photo. Although, if it was your final landing in the LM, it would have been tempting for just a few more seconds of 'stick-time' to pad your logbook with! Yeah, we see he had his reasons for the overshoot.
Compared with the images recently released of some of the other sites, you can see that they really didn't walk far on this landing. They stayed very close just in case things got ulgy and they had to leave quickly.
I wonder how much other stuff will be imaged and identified?

| LRO Apollo 11 page |

Microscopic disease - or Mars?

It looks like a close up view of the swine flu or some nasty disease you don't want to get from the seat of the public bus. Remember, flu season is ugly this year - wash your hands!
Ok, this is nothing contagious, just one of the latest images from Mars this week. The Big Picture has posted another impressive photo essay of Mars. I don't know much about modern art, but couldn't these be framed and hung in a fancy art museum?

| Full photo essay from Boston.com |

...and now more views of Apollo 12 site.

Just the other day, we saw the closeup view of the Apollo 17 site. Now here is another view of the Apollo 12 landing site. Complete with footprints, nice view of the descent stage clearly showing the 4 footpads, and gear left behind. Very cool!
Amazing to see these again almost 40 years later and realize that NOTHING has moved up there, and it's just the same as when they left. Of course I'm sure the flag has faded, and disintegrated in the sun, and the gold mylar on the spacecraft has probably turned into something else too. But remember, there is no wind, rain or other forces (well, maybe a bit of dust from a nearby meteor impact maybe) that will ever wipe away those footprints. They will always be there. Oooh spooky thoughts!
There is a lot more hardware up there that will probably be seen again. I'm kind of excited to see the Russian Lunokhod rovers. They should be fairly easy to spot, just like the Mars rovers, there is a lander, then follow the trail to the rover.

| More details on Apollo 12 images |

Last lunar footprints - seen again.

Apollo 17 was the last mission to the moon back in December 1972. Gene Cernan is still the last person to leave a footprint on the moon. Before leaving the surface, he said the following:

"As I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come — but we believe not too long into the future — I'd like to just [say] what I believe history will record — that America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17."

Finally, just before launch the final words on the moon were "Let's get this mother out of here"
So here we are 36 years later and nobody has walked on the moon since.

But....LRO is giving us the best views of the surface since Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt left.
Here it is, the Apollo 17 site including the flag and final footprints visible.

| More photos here on the LROC site |

Ares 1-X photo essay.

Boston.com posted another one of those great photo essays. As expected, there are some angles and photos not seen before. Check them out at the link below.

| Boston.com Ares 1-X flight |

Ares 1-X flight seen from 12,000 feet.

Here is a good video of the whole Ares 1-X flight from launch until splash. It was taken from a Cessna about 10 miles from the launch pad, at about 12,000 feet. Camera mounted outside the plane.
Easy to see the booster is the heavy part since the "dummy" payload just kind of floats around while the booster falls away. Look for the shockwave just before the chute comes out (at around 4:00) - then one of the chutes failed and it hit the water hard probably causing the dent in the booster that was found.

Filters, levels, masking, and mental saturation.

I'm writing this from the lobby of the Doubletree hotel in San Jose. Internet is free down here, the TV is acting funky, nothing to do in the room upstairs anyway. I'm here this weekend for the AIC (Advanced Imaging Conference). Spent the whole day in 4 seminars on image processing, and autoguiding. I'll just say my brain is full, but excited to try my new skills I learned - hopefully repeat a few times so I remember how to do it. Tony Hallas had a really great talk on Photoshop processing with some simple and amazing tricks with even more incredible results using an image of M81.
So far, I'm on the right track with my processing, but really need more work with using some of the Photoshop, levels, curves, layers, and definitely masking!
I just spent about $360 on a couple of filters for my Canon 350D camera - CLS filter for light polution, a H-alpha filter, and a book. Probably buy more stuff before the weekend is out.
Kind of fun meeting with a bunch of other astro-geeks. We all sit at tables, introduce ourselves, then pass around our netbooks and iPods sharing our "family" pictures of our backyard galaxies and objects. My little family of galaxies photos were kind of the "special needs" kid compared with some of the others that were shared (at least I think so!). There are people from all over the country, including someone from Australia and France. Always nice to meet others that share the same interest of staying out late at night, fooling around with expensive optics and computer gear while cursing into the darkness out of frustration. I did mention this is a rewarding hobby while being the most aggravating and frustrating activity around?

Coolest quilt I've seen in a long time.

I don't know anything about sewing or quilting, but I just know (from my mother) that quilting isn't an easy thing, and takes a long time to do. Mom often scoffs at people that make them at less than minimum wage when they finally factor in the time that they spent making it, and the very low price they sell it at the yearly Christmas bazaar.
I saw this site that sells some pretty good looking quilts that would attract the astronomer crowd. I think if this guy was a vendor at some of the summer star parties, he would do quite well. We do need more vendors up at Table Mountain Star Party, the bad economy has made equipment shopping pretty sad the last few years up there.
Here is a nice sample of the M64 galaxy in a quilt. Forget the Snuggie, I'll curl up under a galaxy while watching a good meteor shower!

| Jimmy McBride Art |

The pads are full of old and new.

The Aries 1X and shuttle are both on the pads now. Just a few more days until Aries flies for the first time.
I was just thinking something else about this new rocket. It sure won't sound as good as the shuttle. One SRB rocket vs. the shuttle's 2 SRBs, and 3 SSMEs all firing at the same time. To quote Alan Bean when seeing Alan Shepard fly:

"He's gone higher than I've ever gone, and faster than I've ever gone, and most importantly, he's made more noise doing it."

NOISE! Will the Aries be the rocket equivalent of a Honda rice-burner with a fart can? I've seen a shuttle launch from 6 miles away and the noise that thing makes is almost worth witnessing it in person. Here is the best sounding video I've seen with a launch (this is the STS-117 launch that I was at).



I guess I should quit nit-picking The Stick.....sorry - Aries - before I even see it fly. I'm starting to sound like I'm talking about Star Trek XI!

NASA for your pocket.

NASA just released a really nice little iPhone/iPod touch application today. It's kind of a mini, pocket version of the NASA web page. There is a countdown/count-up feature on the front page showing how many days/minutes/seconds until then next launch. Then it also shows how many days since a certain mission started. The ISS has been in orbit 3,990 days I just learned today after installing the app.
Also has photos, videos, news, and of course "Twitters" if you are really into that stuff. I draw the line at Twittering personally. Just too much information I don't need to be more of a twit than I already am normally!
Best of all, it's free too. Or I guess we already paid with our taxes - what little NASA does get from the budget.
Always good to see NASA working on stirring up more public interest in this. Good job!

| NASA iPhone site |

The "Stick" is on the pad (or in the bottle?)

A few nights ago NASA rolled out the future of manned space flight for the United States. Personally, I'm still not convinced this is the right path, kind of a step sideways and backwards rather than a jump forward from the shuttle. Sure, saving money and using shuttle booster parts is a good idea, but....?
"The Stick" as it's been nicknamed by some, is about 30 feet short of the height of the Saturn V, but it just looks like a very tall bottle rocket. Sure, can't judge a ship by it's looks (look at the Apollo LM!), but this one does still have it's problems. The problem with the vibration is one that was fixed by adding counterweights to absorb vibration. Adding weight to a rocket does that make any sense?
Download the Press Kit below, there is a lot of good information about the flight, and plenty of diagrams for you visual types - like myself.
Anyway, it's test flight is top priority in a few days, so we'll see if the stick flies when the fuse is lit!

| Mission updates |

| Press kit (3.2 meg pdf) |

Shields up!

I saw this image today and found that it was a great visual aid showing how well Martians are shielding their planet from the invading Earthlings. Some ships get through though, but most don't.
We have 6 countries (I guess Soviet Union is a former country) attacking Mars - Soviet Union, United States, Russia, Japan, Europe and soon China. The US is still the leader at getting through the shields and all the way to the surface!

(Click the picture for a full size view)