Orbital time-lapse

Another really pretty video of the Earth from the space station along with a bunch of auroras and thunderstorms flickering in the clouds.   Very cool, but I think they could have used some better music.
Watch it in band-width sucking HD and full screen for best effect.



Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Cub Scouts visit the Highlands Astro-shack Observatory

I've had a few contacts through the club website lately asking about club members that could come to a scout meeting and demonstrate or teach some things about astronomy and telescopes.  I thought it would be more fun, and a lot easier to invite the Cub Pack (or is it a Troop?) over to our backyard observatory for a viewing.  Ok, November is getting into the dangerous month for storms and rare clear skies, but at least I can show them the telescope and how it works.
A small group of local scouts came over on a field trip the other night for a tour of the sky and telescope.  Skies were clear during the day, but hazed over later around sunset (it never fails!), but the moon was out and Jupiter was just clearing the tree in the backyard.  I was able to give them a fairly good view of the moon, and as it was lost in the oncoming haze, I swung around to Jupiter and showed them the cloud bands and the 4 moons.  NASA (or is it Russia now?) was cooperative and provided a space station flyby also which I pointed out to them.
Despite lousy skies, it was a great success!  The kids had a lot of good questions (as well as the parents) and I was able to answer them as fast as I could (they had a lot of questions that were fired at me in rapid succession).  Another group of scouts are coming next week, and the parents were so pleased that they asked if I could host a few more evenings with a few more groups.  Of course I said I would do it.

(click photos to view full size)