SPACE

Zoot · Post by **Zoot** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:38 pm 0

Heads up.

Endeavour due to land tonight at 7:05 EDT. That's 11:05 pm our time.

Just as a matter of interest, this is a cool little toy that makes doing the time conversions very easy

Orava · Post by **Orava** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 11:58 pm 0

Flight controllers gave a no-go on de-orbit for the first landing opportunity at 23:05 UTC (19:05 EDT), due to unfavorable weather conditions at the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center.[28]

Weather conditions appear favorable for the second landing opportunity also , planned for 00:39 UTC 27 March 2008 (20:39 EDT 26 March 2008). If the landing goes ahead, it will also occur at the Shuttle Landing Facility, and will be the sixteenth night landing of the Space Shuttle at the Shuttle Landing Facility, 22nd overall. Coincidentally, this mission also began with a night launch.

Still time to catch the landing on NASA TV then....

PVB · Post by **PVB** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 12:20 am 0

Orava wrote:
Flight controllers gave a no-go on de-orbit for the first landing opportunity at 23:05 UTC (19:05 EDT), due to unfavorable weather conditions at the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center.[28]

Weather conditions appear favorable for the second landing opportunity also , planned for 00:39 UTC 27 March 2008 (20:39 EDT 26 March 2008). If the landing goes ahead, it will also occur at the Shuttle Landing Facility, and will be the sixteenth night landing of the Space Shuttle at the Shuttle Landing Facility, 22nd overall. Coincidentally, this mission also began with a night launch.
Still time to catch the landing on NASA TV then....

So it looks like the de-orbit burn should happen in about 15 minutes, with the landing at about 12:39am UK time.

PVB · Post by **PVB** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 1:48 am 0

And she's down.

Looks weird to see those gasses burning off.

Wumpus4x4 · Post by **Wumpus4x4** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 2:35 pm 0

ATV and ISS tracking

Docking rehearsals today and on Monday. Docking due on Thursday.

Wumpus4x4 · Post by **Wumpus4x4** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 8:31 pm 0

F-ZeroOne · Post by **F-ZeroOne** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 10:30 pm 0

Jules Verne was built in Europe. Lets hope that the mission controllers at least played lots of Elite.

"Toulouse, this is ISS - Right on, Commander!".

Zoot · Post by **Zoot** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 8:42 am 0

Don't forget that with the ATV and ISS in close proximity, you can view them with the naked eye folowing the same track. They were pretty close last night following the docking rehearsal, but tonight the ATV will be a little in front of the ISS.

As usual, pop along to Heavens Above to find out when you can see them and where.

Wumpus4x4 · Post by **Wumpus4x4** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 9:41 pm 0

Decent view of them both just now. Couldn't discern any structure to ISS this time but it was nice to see them both a few seconds apart. One bonus meteor and something in a polar orbit as well a minute or two earlier

.

Zoot · Post by **Zoot** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 9:42 pm 0

Wumpus4x4 wrote:Decent view of them both just now. Couldn't discern any structure to ISS this time but it was nice to see them both a few seconds apart. One bonus meteor and something in a polar orbit as well a minute or two earlier .

Yep - it's great when folks ask you what you are looking at and you tell them that it's the ISS - they don't believe you at first, and then run off to

get their family!

PinkFearie · Post by **PinkFearie** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 10:55 pm 0

stealthbanana wrote:OK, something of kinda substance.

I had a telescope when I was a kid, some wee thing. I been thinking of buying a new one, hopefully one that I can add a digital camera to in order to take pictures.

Anyone done this, and what sort of starter equipment would I need and rough costings. I would like a scope on a motorised mount that I can interface with a laptop.

i believe stuartb cable tied his camera to his telescope sucsessfully a few years ago for the eclipse.

F-ZeroOne · Post by **F-ZeroOne** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 11:22 pm 0

Having recently looked into this myself: a reasonably decent beginners telescope will cost anything up to about three hundred pounds.

After that, with lenses, accessories, mounts, GPS, better binoculars because the depth of fields better, new lap-top for the star-charts, software, cases, power tanks, motorised mounts, filters, CCD, convincing yourself that you do need to upgrade to a Canon EOS, realising that what you really want is a dome so that you don't freeze to death at nights and seeing as you're doing it already then you may as well get a mains extension, there is no final figure.

Just to give you an idea of where this can lead, heres a link to Terry Pratchetts observatory. Yes, that Terry Pratchett. Seems all those remarks about astronomy being "doing hard maths in the cold" were closer to the truth than you suspected...

http://bp2.blogger.com/_snL9IUPzWgI/RpE ... /terry.jpg

RedOktober · Post by **RedOktober** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 11:32 pm 0

I want an observatory.

axel000 · Post by **axel000** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 4:01 am 0

Just read a piece on space.com today, interesting to hear that Virgin Galactic will be running a second spaceport out of Sweden in 2011/2012 for suborbital flights. Apparently the added attraction is a possible first person view of the northern lights.

Orava · Post by **Orava** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 4:28 pm 0

axel000 wrote:Just read a piece on space.com today, interesting to hear that Virgin Galactic will be running a second spaceport out of Sweden in 2011/2012 for suborbital flights. Apparently the added attraction is a possible first person view of the northern lights.

Mmm. Radiation.

YakYak

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