America launches astronauts from American soil

The most exciting story for me today was the launch of American astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken into space. What makes this particularly newsworthy is that this is the first time since the shuttle programme ended in 2011 that the US has launched American astronauts from American soil.

Since 2011, the only way into space (and the International Space Station) has been by paying for a ride on the Russian Soyuz rockets - the same vehicle that Britain's Tim Peake went to the ISS on 3 years ago.

Having watched many of the Apollo and shuttle launches, the countdown always gets me - the last couple of minutes seems to go so quickly, and the 10 second countdown at liftoff makes my skin tingle - the don't have that countdown in Russia with the Soyuz - they just go at the anointed time

Additionally, the vehicle used today, the Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon capsule is designed and built by Space X the company opened by the controversial Elon Musk. Thus, it's a commercial undertaking, albeit in partnership with NASA, and provides a route for commercial expeditions to the ISS and beyond in future. The technology used is incredible on a number of fronts. It was remarkable to see the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket return to earth and land with precision, upright on a drone platform in the ocean, enabling it to be re-used for future flights. This is now fairly standard Space X Falcon procedure but it's still amazing to see it happen. The astronauts have futuristic suits and helmets unlike anything seen before except perhaps in movies, and most of their controls in the Dragon capsule are touch screen

After the first launch scrubbed on Wednesday due to the weather, today's countdown and liftoff was perfect. The two astronauts now have a 19 hour journey to the ISS, where they'll spend around 120 days before returning to earth.

With worldwide travel pretty restricted, these tow astronauts have had the ride of their life today, and can no go and self isolate in the ISS for four months. Hopefully by the time they return, things will be a little bit better on this planet.

Image: NASA

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

Two planets and a spaceship

Last night I spotted two planets and a spaceship!

Venus has been shining brightly in our skies for some months, although will soon disappear from view. You can't miss it. It's the brightest object in our skies low in the west in the early evening and I've previously taken a photo of the planet when it was in conjunction with the star cluster Pleiades.

Venus/Pleiades 4th March 2020

In the last few days though, it's been joined in the sky by Mercury the planet nearest to the sun. It's a rare sight - for a start it never gets about 28º from the western horizon making it difficult to see unless you've got a great field of view, and secondly it's usually not very bright meaning observing it requires binocular or a telescope. Currently though, it's easily observable with the naked eye - but not for long. This photo was taken by someone I follow on Twitter last evening (@susan_snowy) and shows both planets well.

Venus (top left) and Mercury (bottom right)
Copyright @susan_snowy

Over the next few days as Venus sinks lower in the skies there will be a "conjunction" (a visual coming together, even though they're actually about 31 million miles apart).

It's worth getting out and having a look as soon as it gets dark - I was out at 10pm last night to see this whilst preparing for the International Space Station (ISS) to pass overhead.  Mercury is elusive, so to be able to tick this one off your "I've seen list" is well worth doing.

I've posted about the ISS several times previously, but make no apologies for doing so again. This is a real spaceship, around 250 miles up, going at 17,500 mile per hour, orbiting the earth once every 90 minutes. Currently with a crew of three (two Russians and an American). Last night's pass was epic. It appears (as it almost always does from the west/west south west and flew overhead visible as a very bright yellow dot. The pass was six minutes in length and the brightness didn't fade until it it disappears from view over some houses. Sometimes it fades quickly depending on where the sun is (it's the sun reflecting off the station that makes it visible). My photo below, isn't the best ISS shot I've ever taken (got my exposure settings wrong), but who cares!

ISS flying overhead
150 second time-lapse:
Tripod mounted Canon 100D
18-50mm lens
ISO100
f11
remote shutter

Still in space, next week (May 27th to be exact) sees the launch of Space X's Crew Dragon, on top of a Falcon 9 rocket with two American astronauts who will fly to and from the ISS. This is a historic launch and flight as it's the first time American astronauts will have launched from US soils since the shuttle programme ended in 2011, relying on Russian Soyuz craft ever since.

This flight is called "Demo-2", and follows "Demo-1" an unmanned flight to the ISS just over a year ago. The two astronauts, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are NASA veterans. They might not have time for Twitter at the moment, but can both be followed at @Astro_Doug and @AstroBehnken respectively. whilst there have been test flights, you've got to admit it takes some balls to be sat on top of a rocket - especially in an historic first. The launch will undoubtedly be available to view on stream, probably via Nasa and Space X.

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

The power of Twitter

A bit late today. Got caught up in other stuff and then have just been out to clap for the NHS!

The social media channel Twitter, can be a bit of a nightmare. People can post anything they like (pretty much), which is both good - because there's pretty much nothing off limits and you see some great stuff on there, and bad, because people often use it as a vent for their frustrations, anger, strong views, or fake news. It's often used as a ranting platform (or as much as you can rant in the 280 character limit), and there are some truly despicable people out there.

However, as always there are two sides to the coin. I've been a user for over 12 years, from when it was still in its infancy. Over that time I've posted almost 30,000 times and have massed a meagre 400 followers, although I do count a couple of well know celebrities amongst that number (God knows why). I've tweeted (and had a response from) an astronaut on the International Space Station, and follow most of the US, Canadian and European astronauts that have been up there for the last 8 years or so. As a breaking news platform it just about beats everything - you often read about stuff on Twitter before it hits any of the major news outlets, although as with everything else you need to be cautious), it's as subject to hoaxes as any platform.

I often use the platform as my first port of call on customer service queries. Most companies have a Twitter presence, and the public nature of the platform means every who follows me can see if I complain about company X, so businesses tend to be inclined to deal with problems perhaps a little quicker than if you revert to email for instance. It doesn't always work though, and some companies are either frustratingly silent or tend to post bland, unhelpful responses - Train companies are particularly good at this - complain that your journey is going badly and the train is crowded  and they'll come out with a "We're really sorry about that".

During the current pandemic it's been a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand you've got the pro-Government tweeters, vs everyone who thinks they've done a terrible job, vs the news channels who is seems are biased both towards and against the Government (you can't win in politics). And the there are ordinary, sensible people asking good questions, giving sound advice - one voice of reason I've started following during this time is oncologist Karol Sikora (@ProfKarolSikora) who has remained calm and objective whilst those elsewhere seem to be either spouting rubbish or defending poor decision making.

Anyway, today I used the platform to answer a question. A friend had asked me about a photo of a crayfish I took some while back, asking if it was a native or one of the introduced, invasive and destructive (to native species) Signal crayfish. I didn't have a clue and the two species look virtually identical, so it's hard even with a photo, but I knew Twitter would come up trumps.

I posted the photo (attached here), and asked Twitter to do it's work.

Probably a Signal crayfish

I cheated a bit by tagging Will Millard, (@MillardWill) someone I've shared a couple of tweets with in the past who's an angler and BBC presenter (and who incidentally lives in Cardiff). He told me what he thought, tagged someone else and within 5 minutes I had my answer. It's a Signal.

Since then a few more Twitterati have responded to my tweet confirming the initial suspicions.

Used this way, it's a great tool. I love it (as you've probably guessed), and probably spend far too much time flicking through my timeline.

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

That's not a moon.....actually it is.

Around 238 thousand miles away, a lump of rock goes round our planet. The moon. This apparently grey, barren lump of dust and rock has for millennia been steeped in mystery and ancient traditions, and acted as a calendar for ancient farmers. It is responsible for our tides and was of course the centre of the space race between America and Russia to see who could first put a man on it's surface. We only ever see one side, with the fables "dark side of the moon" always pointing out to space. Oddly, it's not dark though - it's only dark to us.

Most people probably barely notice this satellite, the fifth largest satellite in our own solar system, and if they do won't take particular notice of it. But it's worthy of more of your attention.

Last night in a first for me, I attached my Canon 100D DSLR camera to my 8 inch Skywatcher Dobsonian telescope to try and take a photo of the moon. In order to do this I removed the lens from the camera and attached the camera to the 'scope via a special mounting ring. Once attached it was simply a case of lining up the 'scope to look at the moon through the camera viewfinder/screen rather than a dedicated telescope eyepiece.

Once I had the orbiting rock in my sights, it some careful focusing using the 'scope's controls, and I was ready to shoot. I used a remote shutter please cable to minimise the risk of any camera shake, and fired away. I took several shots at different shutter and ISO settings to see which setting gave me the best shot.

Once I'd taken 30 or so images it was back inside to the computer and my current preferred image post processing viewing and editing software Luminar 4 (other and cheaper [and more expesnive] programs are available). I was pretty impressed with some shots as a first ever effort at doing this, but the best photos still needed tweaking. For one thing, viewing an object through a telescope means the image isn't orientated correctly, so that needed to be changed. Secondly whilst the best of the bunch looked pretty ok, they benefited from some slight tweaking of shadows and contrast to make the features of the moon stand out more. The photo below is the one of the best of bunch after all tweaks have been applied. I'm pretty happy with that, and it's inspired me to try this again.

My first ever photo of the moon through a telescope 6-5-21

Tonight (should skies be clear) should be a special view as it will be a Full Moon. Depending on where you live this full moon is variously known as the Flower Moon, Corn Planting Moon, Milk Moon, the Vesak Festival Moon and Supermoon.

If you haven't got a telescope, then any half decent pair of binoculars will enable you to have a great look at the moon, and if you haven't got a pair of binoculars then just use your eyes.  A great lockdown activity for all the family!

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

May The 4th Be With You

Yes it's Star Wars day, or what has traditionally become that day based on the date being a pun of "May the Force Be With You".

I'm a huge Star Wars fan, and have been since the original film came out in 1977. It was a film unlike no other. For a start it began as a trilogy of films, but oddly at episode four (or IV) Eh? What happened to 1, 2 and 3 or I, II and III? The filming and special effects were next level for the time. I recall that special cameras called the Dykstraflex were invented by John Dykstra an American special effects artist, specifically for some of the more complex special effects (SE) shots in the film. Whilst the SE of that 1977 rendition now look dated after 43 years, they came about at a time when you could still see the string in SE shots in the episodes of Dr Who and other sci-fi type films/series of the same era.

It was a real fairly story - heroes, different worlds, a range of villains or varying scariness and nastiness, princesses, many strange animals, cute and no so cute droids, and a modern twist on ancient weapons - the lightsabre is a truly defining weapon in filmography. My friends and I must have seen that original at the cinema  loads of times. I've certainly never seen any other film as much.

And as the story has progressed, it's inevitably become more complex with greater twists and turns. The original three films, Episode IV: A New Hope, Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back (most people's favourite, including mine) and Episode VI: Return of the Jedi were all great in my view. After a 16 year hiatus, the story returned with the much first derided Episode I: Phantom Menace (mainly I think because of the Gungan character Jar Jar Binks whom it seems everyone hated. Personally I enjoyed (and still do) Phantom, which has some great scenes. Episode II: Attack of the Clones was also a decent film and then in 2005 a full 28 years after the original film, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith brought the by now, perceived 6 episode story to its conclusion.

How were we to know though then, that ten years on from Revenge of the Sith, Episode VII: The Force Awakens was to pop up on cinema screens, follow by Episode VIII: The Last Jedi two years later and finally last year Episode XI The Rise of Skywalker.  Whilst I've enjoyed these latter films, I haven't enjoyed them as much as the earlier ones. Perhaps because I'm just getting older and my tastes have changes, but more likely it's because I find the stories have become a bit weaker. I find that there are some glaring "plot holes" and feel there are some scenes and storylines that are there for convenience rather than holding true to the storyline. That's not to say they're bad though. Maybe I'm just becoming a grumpy old git.

And of course, all the above doesn't include a couple of spin-off films. Solo: A Star Wars Story documenting the early life of rogue, smuggler or pirate (depending on your take) Han Solo, and Rogue One, the story that essentially fits between Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Episode IV: A New Hope and sets out how the plans for the Death Stars that featured in the very first film, A New Hope were stolen.

The Star Wars universe (the films, books rather than space per se) is absolutely massive, with both canon and non-canon stuff. Mind bogglingly so. For true nerds there are also things like the Star Wars Galaxy Map, an interactive resource that allows you to explore the Star Wars Universe - planets, trade routes and so forth.

We've seen countless worlds, creatures, spaceships, villains, quotes, over the 43 years. It's mostly been a joy, with some real escapism. If I had to pick my favourite moments from all of that it would be nigh on impossible. One of my favourite quotes though comes from that very first film, when Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke, and the two droids R2-D2 and C-3PO are looking towards Mos Eisley spaceport and Obi-Wan says:

You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.

Given we're all in still in lockdown due to this wretched coronavirus, there are worse things to do than sit down and watch the lot back to back.

May The Force Be With You

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

April 20th: Apologies, data and bread

Firstly an apology to those who got excited about yesterday's Starlink post and went out last evening to look for the supposedly excellent pass at around 10am (I know my sister and her family did).

It was a very disappointing. Starlink satellites were visible, but they were much fainter and much more widely spaced than the night before. Those who know about these things better than me say it's very hard to predict exactly how "good" one of these passes as the satellites move towards their final orbit, unlike the International Space Station passes which are very predictable. On the upside, a better pass is predicted at around 9pm this evening. I also understand there's a launch of the next batch (60) of Starlink satellites tomorrow (Wednesday) in the US, so there's a chance we might get to see an even better "string of pearls" pass a day or so later. And remember, we're also in the middle of the Lyrid meteor shower which peaks tonight and into the early hours of tomorrow morning, so if you've got nothing planned, just go out in the garden tonight and look up. You might see a spaceship, and you might see meteors. Assuming the sky is clear, you'll definitely see loads of stars!

How easily do you give up data?

Barely a day goes by when I don't see and get irritated by a Facebook post from someone imploring me to fill in a list along the lines of:

"I'm bored during lockdown. I bet none of my Facebook friends will do this, but just for a bit of fun let's see who does. Then share your answer with all your friends"

Things like:

1. Your favourite colour
2. Name of your first pet
3. Best holiday destination
4. Your favourite meal
5. Colour of your car
6. Month you  got married
7. Your computer passwords

Ok I made the last one up, but had I not, I suspect there might be a few people out there gullible enough to do it! 

Whilst these seem like a bit ion innocent fun, in reality, these sorts of "challenges" aren't your pals idea. They've more than likely been instigated by persons unknown as a co-ordinated way for someone to "scrape" data about you. For example, if you filled in the top five answers in the first example, everyone (including the people that instigated this) knows that you like blue, you had a pet called Bertie, you like going to Ibiza, your car is red (why didn't you buy a blue one if it's your favourite colour?) and you got married in September. Imagine that list being 20 or more items. That's a lot of information about you. Then imagine you sharing that list with everyone of your contacts, and they sharing with every one of theirs and so on. Imagine how many people freely giving up data about their "favourite things" that is (incidentally, that's also a bit like how coronavirus spreads so quickly which is why you should be staying at home!).

And all this can (and most likely is) used at the very least for tailoring marketing advertisements towards you. Worse, it could be used by unscrupulous individuals (yes I know some people think marketeers are unscrupulous, but let's not go there), to start mining accounts for passwords. Too many people use basic passwords based on their favourite things, and also repeat those passwords over multiple accounts, so with enough people filling these in, some people will inadvertently leak their passwords, or at least give people a head start when it comes to cracking them.

That's why I don't fill these things in. It's not because I'm a grumpy old git (although that may be true) and I don't want to engage with my "friends". Honest.

Made soda bread again today. Looks like a better effort than my first one a week or so ago. Only time will tell - tea-time!

Home made bread

And finally, my son had a blender out this afternoon making iced coffee. The following short video on slo-mo on an iPhone shows what happens in a blender when there's water in it. Quite transfixing.

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

April 20th: Part 1 - The aliens are coming...

Last night I watched an incredible sight. And (clear skies permitting), you can do the same again tonight at around 9.55pm.

I saw in excess of 40 bright Starlink satellites trailing across the sky in a train one after another - around 20 seconds apart. If you've ever watched the International Space Station fly across the sky, it was a bit like that (not quite as bright, but not far off). They were so bright because the sun was reflecting off them. You certainly couldn't miss them, and they just kept coming. I took a couple of time-lapse shots on my iPhone but they didn't come out that well. The  time-lapse trail photo below is one of a myriad you'll find on Twitter that shows how many of these things there were. The long lines are the time-lapse trails from the satellites, the shorter horizontal lines are star trails due to the length of the exposure - the vertical streak in the bottom left quadrant may be a meteor (we're in the middle of the Lyrid meter shower currently).

Starlink timelapse April 19 2020
Credit @HH_Bert

If you didn't know what these lights were and were watching them, it could have been fairly unsettling. I've certainly never seen anything like it in my life

These satellites form part of what will ultimately be a "constellation" of low earth orbit (LEO) satellites launched by Elon Musk's SpaceX company intended to provide global internet access (plus undoubtedly many other uses). As I understand it, there are currently around 360 of these satellites in LEO, but ultimately it's rumoured that there might be as many as 40,000 (yes you read that right - forty thousand!).

Musk is a controversial character - he's the chap who launched a Tesla Roadster into space with a space mannequin in February 2018. Whilst these Starlink satellites will no doubt perform some useful scientific purpose, they carry major concerns on two fronts.

Firstly, that they just add to the space junk that already exists up there. The US Space Surveillance Network already calculates that there are over 20,000 items of "debris" in orbit, ranging from tiny bits to considerable chunks of used rocket/satellites. If rumours around Starlink are true, this adds a further 40,000. And we don't yet know what other space capable countries like China, Russia or India for example are putting up there. That's a massive amount of clutter, and whilst it may be "out of sight", it proses real issues for the International Space Station for example that has to regularly manoeuvre to avoid space junk.

Secondly, those that observe the night Skys, from professional and commercial researchers to amateurs including astrophotographers are massively concerned that the night skies may eventually become unobservable due to the amount of clutter up there. And they have a real point. Anyone who's  ever taken a night photo will probably have captured the odd satellite of plane in their image. If there are tens of thousands of these satellites up there, it will make astrophotography nigh on impossible.

It's countered that as these eventually make their way to their final orbit they'll be too high to see with the naked eye, and SpaceX is apparently also trialling some with a non-reflective material. Whether either statement is true we'll just have to wait and see.

Whatever your view, there's no doubt that last night's display was an awesome sight, and tonights promises to be even better. I literally stood open mouthed in my garden for nearly twenty minutes watching these things pass over.

If you want to get into observing the night sky follow @VirtualAstro on Twitter - he'll tell you what's around and what's coming over. The pass tonight will be around 9.55pm - get out and have a look. If you're feeling bold, you can also try to photograph these using just your phone.

I use an iPhone app called NightCap from the App Store - I'm note sure what's available for Android, but I'm sure there must be something similar. It has a number of modes including ISS mode, and light trails mode. Set it up pointing at where you think the ISS (or in this case satellites) are going to come from, press record and that's it. Press stop when you're done. Use a tripod if you can, or secure it from moving however you can. You might not get it right first time. It's trial and error.

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

April15th: Sparkly Sirius

I've mentioned before that I'm fascinated by space and the night sky. Inspired by a post on Twitter a few days ago, last night I made an attempt to photograph the star Sirius (also called Alpha Canis Majoris or the Dog Star). Its name is derived from Greek meaning glowing, sparkling or scorching". Easily visible in the night sky currently lowish to the south in early evening, it's very bright (though not as bright as Venus at the moment). Of particular note is that it's probably one of the "twinkliest" stars in the sky, and even with the naked eye you can see both the twinkling and as well as some apparent changes of colour as it twinkles.

The collage photo below is the result of my efforts last night. The change in colours from this star are literally over a period of a couple of seconds whilst I took a burst set of photos and are both amazing and stunning in equal measure and are largely due to the light from the star combined with the atmospheric conditions as the light hits the earth's atmosphere. I'm dead chuffed with the result of this as my first effort at this.

Sirius - changing colours captured 9pm 14 April 2020

I achieved result this by tripod mounting my binoculars (Olympus 10x50 DPS1 - excellent for star gazing), focussing on Sirius and then defocusing slightly (to get a more blurry and therefore deliberately fuzzy shot of the star) and then hand holding my iPhone XR camera lens to one of the binocular eye pieces and holding the shutter down for a couple of seconds to get multiple burst images. It's a bit hit and mis-using the phone hand held to actually get the shot, but after a couple of goes shooting nothing I managed it!

Once I got the shots, I needed to post-process them as the star was just a tiny coloured dot in each frame. I exported all the images from the iPhone, and then used software called "BatchPhoto"to import and crop all the images in one go so the crop ratio was 100% (doing them individually/manually would be a disaster). Then after exporting the cropped images, I used a Mac application (sorry - no Windows here), called CollageFactory Free from the Mac App Store to pull together the image above in a grid.

The night sky is truly a wondrous thing, and with the current clear skies and relatively mild evenings, it's a perfect time for getting out in the garden and having a look around. There are numerous people to follow on Twitter who provide all sorts of great info about the night sky, but if you only follow one I recommend @VirtualAstro (website at meteorwatch.org). One imminent thing to watch out for is the Lyrid meteor shower which occurs this year from tomorrow (16th) to 25th April peaking late 21st/early 22nd.

Back in the world of #isolation life and Covid-19, my son has somewhat expectedly been put on furlough. Daughter is still working from home, most of her IT issues seem to have been sorted, and my wife has a week off from work this week (well her normal 2 days anyway). She's been to see her Mum today and do some shopping for her - all ok there. After yesterday's nice walk over on the local golf course, the next highlight of my week will be a trip to the doctors surgery on Friday for my routine blood test.

I can assure everyone that the cat is fine, but living a pretty dull life currently. Sleeping most of the time, as evidenced by this shot of her underneath the rosemary bush next to the compost bin!

Spot the cat

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

March 25th: Food and space

Well if we're in this for the long haul, we should be good here. I already had onions, strawberries, raspberries, potatoes, leeks, radish, spinach and rhubarb on the go in my (very small) plot, and yesterday I sowed tomatoes, courgettes and cucumbers. I would say we won't starve, but it'll take months to grow so it might be too late by then. Better brave Tesco's or some other outlet soon then...

Actually I went to Lidl's. It's a five minute walk, so I doubled up on my allowances for a daily walk outside the house essential shopping. The Lidl store has been rammed of late in common with many other supermarkets. In fact, come to think of it, it's busy most off the time, even when we haven't got an apolcalyptic situation. This morning to be fair, whilst it was fairly busy, I've seen it busier, and there was an air of calmness about the place. It was pretty well stocked with everything (except flour, and I didn't go down the loo roll aisle) plus the normal "extra" stuff that the store is famous (or is that 'infamous' for). People didn't seem to be panic buying anything (apart from a bloke who had a carte of 24 cans of cider who it seemed was politely asked to step to one side and speak to someone (seems you can't buy 24 tinnies at once). Trouble is, when I go shopping I end up buying things I wasn't sent for. Today it was two doughnuts and a a pair of Belgian iced buns, some eggs (apparently we already had some) and a chicken and mushroom pot noodle. The main thing I went for was milk, and I forgot to buy that.....

Elsewhere, both kids have been WFH, my daughter's IT issues seemingly largely resolved. My wife went to see her mum and get her shopping and stuff. I've done more gardening, sorted my compost heap (yes it's a thing), cleaned the uPVC windows (plus the conservatory inner window sills (did the outers yesterday), and have managed to walk the equivalent of 2.8 miles today doing it all.

Oh, and I cooked tea. A favourite of ours, since I've started my retirement cooking, chicken and turmeric rice.

The cat's still loving the sunny weather (no rats today). She's in for a shock when the weather turns colder later this week.

Photo of the day, an overhead pass of the International Space Station taken this evening on my iPhone. This was the second half of the pass after a quick run from the back garden to the front garden. You can also see the constellation of the Great Bear/Big Dipper or Plough to the left of the picture. The bright star to the bottom is Arcturus.

The ISS is approx 250 miles up and going 17,500mph. Currently has a crew of 3 three, although it can accommodate up to nine. There are usually six, and they usually stay on board for around six months. The current crew is US astronauts Jessica Meir and Andrew “Drew” Morgan and Russian Cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka. Self isolation at its best! You can learn more about the ISS here 

International Space Station over Barry

March 24th. Lockdown day 1: Supplemental update - Pale Blue Dot

Sorry for two posts in one day, but I was out taking photos of stars earlier, and it got me to thinking about Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, check the link out (it's a very short read).

The point I'm making here is this in the context of the situation the world currently finds itself in. This is us. There's no one else (at least if there is, they're keeping well clear of us). Let's not fuck it up.

The wonders of space

I've always been interested in space. The sheer unimaginable scale of space. The possibility of extra-terrestrial life. Spaceships. Men on the moon. Many an hour I've spent watching the stars, with little comprehension beyond the known solar system. I could name a few of the more obvious constellations, find the North star, and have been able to point out Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Venus and even Mercury on one occasion. I'm particularly fond of the International  Space Station. I watch it fly across our skies regularly at 17,500 mph some 250 miles above earth, and follow several astronauts on Twitter both whilst they're up there tweeting from the ISS and afterwards once they're back on terra firma.

And so it was with some delight and significant surprise that for my birthday this year, my good lady bought me a telescope. Not any old scope mind you, but a Skywatcher 200 Dobsonian. That's it there in the photo!

It's almost as big as it looks! It's got an 8" mirror in the bottom and is a wonderful bit of kit. Easy enough to set up and pretty much point and look in use. I've been somewhat hindered by cloudy skies since I've had it. However, I've seen the moon where the detail is awesome, and a few stars (which just look like slight bigger versions of the ones I can see with my eyes!). I've even managed to find the Andromeda galaxy, although even with this beast it's little more than a slightly brighter blotch in the sky. Apparently it is visible with the naked eye in some darker skies, although with my eyes there's no chance. There's an interesting article about the Andromeda galaxy, and how big, relatively, it actually is here.

Last night was probably the clearest the sky has been since I had the scope and I spent some time trawling the skies. I found the Orion nebula (another milky blotch, although a distinct blotch! The other things about looking through a scope is being blown away by the sheer number of stars up there - you can point it at what appears to be a black and empt patch of sky, but when looking through the eyepiece all you can see is countless stars. It really is amazing.

My most wondrous moment however was finally seeing the massive planet of Jupiter and all four of it's moons. I've seen Jupiter before - it's easily visible as a huge bright planet with the naked eye, and I've also seen some of it's moons through binoculars, as tiny pinpricks of light. Through the scope though not only could I see all four moons aligned in a straight line, but Jupiter itself as a distinct and clearly visible planet, with the stripes from it's cloud formations very visible. It was a real "wow" moment for me - forget the picture you see - when you see it like that with your own eyes it's a tremendous feeling.

I even managed to take a photo. It's a crap photo, as it was taken handheld with an iPhone 6 held about 1cm away from the scope's eyepiece, and so full of movement which blurs the picture. It was taken with my widest angle eyepiece on the 'scope which can't make out the detail I described above (I used a greater magnification eyepiece to get that detail) but you can tell it's there, and you can clearly see the four moons. It's a ropey picture, but it's mine, my first ever picture of Jupiter, and I love it!

If you're even remotely interested in what's up in the heavens, I'd recommend an app such as Sky Guide (this is the iTunes link) which is brilliant and helps you start to understand what's where and find all sorts of stuff. It's £1.49 but frankly that's less than the price of half a pint of beer (and no, I have no link to the app of the developer).

If you're a Twitter user, following astronauts is easy. Currently NASA astronaut Terry Virts (@AstroTerry) is aboard and tweeting from the International Space Station (ISS).

A prolific tweeter of all things space and astronomy, including the times of ISS passes is @VirtualAstro