The Backyard Stargazer

A Galaxy Full Of Planets

David Parmet — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:43:25 +0000

160 billion planets and counting.

Source:SPACE.com

The Summer Triangle

David Parmet — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 05:01:17 +0000

DSC_0031, originally uploaded by david parmet. click to embiggen

Not bad for light-polluted suburban skies.

Technical details:

Shot in my backyard on a Nikon D80 on an Astrotrac mount.
20mm Nikon lens at f4
5 minutes at ASA 400

If I had a Telescope this Summer… [Starts With A Bang] (scienceblogs.com)

What A Shuttle Launch Sounds Like

David Parmet — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 13:06:50 +0000

Or sounded like. In case you were wondering.

STS-135 Launch from David Parmet on Vimeo.

The launch of STS-135

Astronomy Apps For The iPhone

David Parmet — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 23:27:46 +0000

There’s a inexplicable lack of astronomy applications for the Mac platform. Sure there’s The Sky and Starry Night but the real serious amateur astronomers I know all carry netbooks with them to their observing sessions.

You would think that with the Mac’s better graphics, that amateur astronomers would flock to the platform but sadly aside from a few advanced applications like Nebulosity and AstroPlanner, most software is designed to run only on Wintel machines. So I thought I would start a series of reviews of applications for the Mac OSX and iOS platforms, starting with some of the tools I use on my iPhone.

Sky Safari and Starmap - Both fantastic and fun to play with planetarium applications with loads of bells and whistles What to know what time Saturn will rise or if M42 is visible tonight? Both can help you out in that department. Both take advantage of the iPhone’s location aware services and motion detector so you can hold your iPhone up to the night sky and see a map of what you are looking of. Sky Safari will also show you what’s below the horizon.

NASA - The official source for anything you want to know about any current NASA mission. Also streams NASA TV. You can also see the next ISS flyover for your area.

flyby - Speaking of ISS flyovers, flyby uses data from Spaceweather.com and lists the next flyover for your location for a whole host of satellites and the ISS. It’s easy to use and will even countdown the time to the next flyover.

iCSC - Invaluable as you are getting ready to head out the door for an observing session, iCSC downloads the latest Clear Sky Chart for your observing site.

So what’s on your smartphone?

The End And The Begining

David Parmet — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 19:14:20 +0000

This morning Atlantis touched down on the runway at Kennedy Space Center, closing out the 30 year old Shuttle program.

After 135 launches the Space Shuttle leaves a mixed legacy. The promise of cheap access to Earth orbit and bi weekly launches was never realized. Two orbiters with 14 lives aboard were lost in preventable accidents. And the costs involved in maintaining the aging fleet in the 90s and 00s doubtlessly drew badly needed funds from the development of a replacement vehicle.

On the positive side of the ledger the Shuttle leaves behind 30 years of experience in living and working in space, scientific breakthroughs from research carried out on the orbiters and on the International Space Station, the launching and servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope and the construction International Space Station itself. It’s nothing sort of amazing that 16 nations were able to cooperate over two decades in the construction and operations of the station; the experience gained will serve NASA and other national space agencies will when we take the next steps out beyond Earth orbit.

As for the future, just Google ‘the new space race‘ and you’ll get a whole lot of information about the companies lining up to open the new frontier to the rest of us. I’m pretty sure it won’t be too long before we see humans launched from LC-39A or some other facility in Kennedy Space Center.

In fact, last week, tucked away in a corner of Cape Canaveral where the tourists don’t go, the Air Force Space and Missile Museum was hosting the newest space celebrity, the Dragon Capsule sent into orbit and back last year by SpaceX.

It was no accident that on launch day, the press area was filled with representatives of the major players in the New Space arena, all in nice air conditioned tents (thankfully giving out bottled water along with squishies and other schwag). Space, at least access to the ISS and Earth orbit, is now the domain of the private sector, freeing up NASA to focus on the next steps – at least that’s the idea.

The future may look grim for American involvement in human space flight but that’s only if you believe that space flight begins and ends with NASA. It doesn’t and I’m counting on returning to Kennedy Space Center in a few years to witness more launches bring more people into space.

Someone’s got to bring back that flag.

Farewell Atlantis

David Parmet — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 20:46:03 +0000

Here’s my complete set (so far) of pictures from launch day, as well as pictures from out and about Merritt Island. I also visited the Air Force Museum up by the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station where SpaceX‘s Dragon capsule was on display.

Inside SpaceX: A Hint of Life After Space Shuttle (wired.com)

Happy Birthday Neptune

David Parmet — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:21:40 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

Today marks one year, in Neptunian years, since our most distant planetary neighbor’s discovery in 1846. Actually, Galileo saw Neptune in his telescope while viewing Jupiter in 1612 but didn’t realize he was looking at a undiscovered planet.

The story of Neptune’s discovery is a great read – it was the first time an astronomical body was discovered after it’s location was predicted mathematically. And at the time there was a bit of controversy over who exactly should get the credit for finding Neptune. You can read the whole story here.

Happy birthday, Neptune! (blogs.discovermagazine.com)
Neptune Is About to Turn One Year Old. What? [Astronomy] (gizmodo.com)
Neptune’s first orbit: a turning point in astronomy (guardian.co.uk)
Neptune begins to give up its secrets (nature.com)

End Of An Era

David Parmet — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 03:54:16 +0000

I had the privilege of attending the final launch of the Orbiter Atlantis and the final Shuttle launch this morning at Kennedy Space Center.

Here are two pictures, more to come.

A Era In Space Travel Comes To An End, With The Lift Off Of Atlantis: UPDATE (annem040359.wordpress.com)
The End Of An Era (earthandsolarsystem.wordpress.com)
Shuttle Atlantis Successfully Lifts Off (scientificamerican.com)
Atlantis lifts off on last space shuttle mission (cbsnews.com)
End of an Era: Shuttle Lifts Off for Final Flight (abcnews.go.com)

Shuttle And Station

David Parmet — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 01:06:36 +0000

Shuttle and Station

from NASA.gov

Newly released portraits show the International Space Station together with the space shuttle, the vehicle that helped build the complex during the last decade. The pictures are the first taken of a shuttle docked to the station from the perspective of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

On May 23, the Soyuz was carrying Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, NASA astronaut Cady Coleman and European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli back to Earth. Once their vehicle was about 600 feet from the station, Mission Control Moscow, outside the Russian capital, commanded the orbiting laboratory to rotate 130 degrees. This move allowed Nespoli to capture digital photographs and high definition video of shuttle Endeavour docked to the station.