Showing posts with label space flight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label space flight. Show all posts
Friday, 14 December 2012
Sunday, 9 December 2012
Sir Patrick Moore, astronomer, presenter of The Sky At Night since 1957, author of many popular astronomy books, inspiration to several generations of astronomers, myself included, has died. Still sitting on our TV's hard disc recorder is last Monday's episode of The Sky At Night, not yet watched. Goodbye, Patrick.
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| Patrick Moore |
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| The Sky At Night, "A Night to Remember". The BBC's 1969 moon landing team: Patrick Moore, Cliff Michelmore, James Burke (but why is this picture reversed?) |
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| Patrick Moore (photo credit: Paul Grover, from Telegraph article in 2010) |
Sunday, 26 August 2012
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| Neil Armstrong |
The audio and visuals have improved over the ensuing 40 years. We now get fantastic pictures from the surface of Mars.
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| Curiosity leaves tracks on Mars, 22 Aug 2012 |
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| Apollo 11 : one of the first footprints on the Moon |
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Tuesday, 24 July 2012
Friday, 13 April 2012
As I was trawling the web to find a particular picture for my "Angry Birds * Space" post, I came across the "Fake Moon Landings Revealed" site. It's well worth a visit.
Thursday, 12 April 2012
I’ve just finished Angry Birds * Space (which everyone seems to call Angry Birds in Spaaaace, of course), released March 2012. So that didn’t last long, either.
This time, the birds and pigs are fighting it out in space, and the birds have rocket drives. There’s gravity in some places (near planets), and not in other places (not near planets). Only it’s not as simple as that. The existence of a gravitational field is shown by a red disc centred on the planet. Inside the disc there’s gravity, with the force directed towards the centre (I can’t tell if it’s 1/r^2 or constant on my little tiny phone screen); outside there’s no gravity. Gravity just switches on when an object enters the disc. Real gravity in space doesn’t work like that, of course.
Outside the disc, in the no-gravity regions, things travel in straight lines. So far, so good, maybe. But they gradually drift to a halt. No gravity, okay, but friction?? (Which is why the birds' rocket drives are on all the time.) Real gravity in space doesn’t work like that, of course.
Also, there are some “black holes”: nothing visible at the centre of the gravity field, but stuff does get broken up if it goes there. There are also, confusingly, sometimes large planets with no gravity field at all, that act as hard (but massless!) obstacles. (Cases with invisible gravitating black holes plus visible gravity-free planets are particularly … interesting.)
There are two new birds: a light blue "ice cube" bird which freezes stuff, making it easier to break later, and a purple ("Lazer") bird that boosts in the direction of your tap (instead of the yellow Lazer bird that boosts along its tangent when you tap).
The planets are very small – Clanger-esque, or even “Little Prince”-like. In order to erect buildings on these small spheres, there are often large flat platforms. Sometimes this can lead to an almost square planet. Even with these platforms, gravity still points to the centre of the planet, so there is a small resultant force along the direction of the platform. I was delighted to notice, when an ice block was at the end of a platform, it slid towards the centre, overshot, then slid back: simple harmonic motion in action. Yay!
I did this time go for a perfect three stars on all levels. That’s because the alternate-physics is fun, and three stars often required an interesting solution exploiting the possibilities, especially where planets are so close their gravity-discs overlap. Fortunately there is a helpful little "preview orbit" dotted line, that gives a partial clue to the final trajectory. (The "Golden Eggsteroid" extra levels are great little spoofs on Space Invaders and the like.)
So, I’m just back from the Science Fiction Eastercon, where I was telling a friend that I’d nearly finished Angry Birds Space. So that’s all three done! (Vanilla, Seasons, Space) There’s also Rio, he said.
AAARGH! WHY DID YOU TELL ME THAT!
I’m now on Rio level four, collecting golden bananas…
This time, the birds and pigs are fighting it out in space, and the birds have rocket drives. There’s gravity in some places (near planets), and not in other places (not near planets). Only it’s not as simple as that. The existence of a gravitational field is shown by a red disc centred on the planet. Inside the disc there’s gravity, with the force directed towards the centre (I can’t tell if it’s 1/r^2 or constant on my little tiny phone screen); outside there’s no gravity. Gravity just switches on when an object enters the disc. Real gravity in space doesn’t work like that, of course.
Outside the disc, in the no-gravity regions, things travel in straight lines. So far, so good, maybe. But they gradually drift to a halt. No gravity, okay, but friction?? (Which is why the birds' rocket drives are on all the time.) Real gravity in space doesn’t work like that, of course.
Also, there are some “black holes”: nothing visible at the centre of the gravity field, but stuff does get broken up if it goes there. There are also, confusingly, sometimes large planets with no gravity field at all, that act as hard (but massless!) obstacles. (Cases with invisible gravitating black holes plus visible gravity-free planets are particularly … interesting.)
There are two new birds: a light blue "ice cube" bird which freezes stuff, making it easier to break later, and a purple ("Lazer") bird that boosts in the direction of your tap (instead of the yellow Lazer bird that boosts along its tangent when you tap).
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| It's a Small World |
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| Square planets! |
So, I’m just back from the Science Fiction Eastercon, where I was telling a friend that I’d nearly finished Angry Birds Space. So that’s all three done! (Vanilla, Seasons, Space) There’s also Rio, he said.
AAARGH! WHY DID YOU TELL ME THAT!
I’m now on Rio level four, collecting golden bananas…
Saturday, 22 October 2011
We also had a camera ready. We have a venerable old Canon EOS 20D digital SLR (2005 vintage), with a 18-55mm lens, here set at about 24mm.
The camera wasn't moved between the first two pictures, so the star field is the same, showing the very clear streak from the rapidly moving (from right to left) space station. (Click to embiggen, and see the stars.)
The camera was moved for the final shot, which shows the ISS fading from view as it moves out of the sunlight.
We then went back indoors, and watched the last ever Sarah Jane Adventures episode, over tea. Sniff.
Jupiter was very bright, so a bit later (around 21:30 BST), when we realised just how well the ISS shots had come out, it was time to try to photograph it with a bigger lens, a Sigma 70-300mm, set at 300mm.
Okay, so not the sharpest focus, but, OMFSM, two moons as well! We can stand in our front garden with a commodity camera and lens, and snap Jupiter's moons.
Monday, 25 April 2011
I've just seen the ISS for the first time. We realised it was due to go over, so popped outside. Lovely clear evening. Bright light in the sky. Is that it? Or is it that one below it? It's the one below: it's moving! Wait, there's another one next to it, also moving! That can't be right. No, it's the bright one that's moving!
It was a very peculiar optical illusion, making the bright light seem to be still in the sky, and the fainter one seem to be moving. After the few seconds of confusion, we watched the bright light move overhead. It whipped overhead quite fast, covering half the sky in a few minutes. It was very bright, probably about magnitude -3. As it got closer to the horizon, it dimmed and brightened a few times, then disappeared.
Observing astronomical stuff is cool. But watching the ISS was quite a different feeling -- people did that! A whole other level of cool.
It was a very peculiar optical illusion, making the bright light seem to be still in the sky, and the fainter one seem to be moving. After the few seconds of confusion, we watched the bright light move overhead. It whipped overhead quite fast, covering half the sky in a few minutes. It was very bright, probably about magnitude -3. As it got closer to the horizon, it dimmed and brightened a few times, then disappeared.
Observing astronomical stuff is cool. But watching the ISS was quite a different feeling -- people did that! A whole other level of cool.
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