ANT THRILLS

 I caught these old NASA prints on old auctions so kept the images.

The Grumman MOLAB on its test bed travels, a superb lunar concept workhorse known to Project SWORD fans as the ANT.

Do you any old NASA prints like this?

NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS

My Son-in-Law pointed out this strange cloud effect one Saturday night a week or so ago. Its the white glowing right-leaning diagonal streak that looks like smoke.

They are called Noctilucent clouds. 

Above is my dark paltry effort at snapping it.

They appear in summer months when the sun remains closer to the horizon after sun set. The clouds are reflections of sunlight after sunset on particles or ice and space dust entering the atmosphere. They're the highest visual atmospheric "thing" we can see.

Here's my Son-in-Law's much more proficient shot of the Noctilucent clouds. 

Have you seen them or anything similar?

CLOUDS ON MARS

I was genuinely blown away by this photo yesterday posted on the JPL NASA site. It's Curiosity's latest shot of clouds over a mountain.

Its so Earth-like! It could be Utah or Cumbria!

Its still staggering that we have vehicles roving the Martian surface taking pictures and for a picture like this its all worth it.

I can really imagine people stood on that cliff edge one day. Can you?

BLACK HOLE SUN

 Out of the distant planet came strands of data we feared the most.

Self-Adhesive Star Fields

Hi Woodsy 

Lat Christmas you ran a piece that mentioned covering school books in paper or self-adhesive vinyl.

Well I picked up a couple of rolls of such self-adhesive book covering. One of the rolls was of a swirling star field, which I rather liked the look of.

I applied some to a sheet of foamboard (also called foam-core) which is a sheet of thin - usually 5 mm - foam covered on both sides with paper. 

This gave me a nice, rigid sheet, ideal for use in photography. 

I did have a little trouble applying this, due to its size, but I got there in the end. 

Took a few test shots, and I was very pleased with the results. 

These photos show the Matchbox X-33, a Lockheed-Martin design for an unmanned spacecraft. The model dates from 2000, but did not stay in the range for long. 

The backgrounds consist of either one or two pieces of foamboard covered in self-adhesive book covering - nothing else.

Yours Sincerely,

Paul Adams from New Zealand

Sea to Shining Sea

Waxing Moon 2 May 

The clear weather is allowing for some great moon shots lately and the most recent one I managed to capture with my Maksutov 500 lens prompted me to get a better idea of what features I was able to make out on the surface. As the light is only partially illuminating the surface at this time of the month, a lot of the craters and mare are thrown into sharp relief. Using my photo as a base, I checked a map for the names of the various major features and made up my own quick guide to what's on show.

I much prefer the vintage maps and models of the moon to the likes of Google Moon or the sterile, more scientific releases available today. The original ones still hold that air of mystery which surrounded the moon, before the first probes and cameras were able to reveal its secrets! The large pvc Moon Globe above is slightly out of scale with the actual features, but does show the positions of all the major landings and probes. The great rayed crater Tycho, made famous by Arthur C Clarke and Stanley Kubrick, looks a little like a fried egg!

MTO Catadioptric Lens

My two favoured lenses for astrophotography, the Maksutov Mirror lens and Praotor Sniper lens, both of which dwarf my little camera!

Praotor 500 mm Telephoto

HALF MOON AND STRANGE COMPANION

The other night I took these quick snaps of a beautiful twin effect between the Moon and what I assumed to be Venus.

The Moon was partial and the other a full white dot.

The two two bright bodies were very close to each other and looked almost like a sort of pearl floating above an oyster or something like that.

Is this something you've seen readers?

Here's a zoom-in.

B R I G H T E R P R O S P E C T S

Messing with possible transporters for my SpaceX Moon Prospector I had a play with one of my Grandson's old rattles.

Illuminating it from below these are the results.

VIRAL SUNSET

Last night's sunset on the hill.

It reminded me of those Sci-Fi movie openings from the 80's for some reason. Like this still from Virus 1980.

What's your fave 80's Sci-Fi movie? Just think of all those VHS flicks you watched!

starry starry night

Last night here in Northern England it was cloud free with a hard frost on the wing. It was also one of the most starry nights I have ever seen.

There were thousands of stars in the night sky and for the very first time I clearly saw Orion's belt. Missus Moonbase, with her better eyesight, could see Orion's nebula below it too!

Beautiful.

Did you enjoy the stars?

A Back Yard Journey Into Space

On these cold and occasional cloudless nights that have occurred these past few evenings I thought I’d seize the moment and have a go at taking a few photos of the night sky in the back garden.  It’s not as easy as I thought and takes quite a bit of trial and error.

Living in a town, light pollution is always going to be a problem, but I reckon you can still get some nice views even in these conditions.

Here’s a  few shots I thought some of you might like.

A First Quarter Moon with some reasonable crater detail along the terminator.  

The following night shows a little more.   

Almost Waxing. My latest Moon Shot.

A change of lens and a look at the stars.

The constellation of Orion, low in the sky and very prominent. I was pleased with the colours here. Note the red super giant star, Betelgeuse at the top left hand side. The streak at the top is a jet engine vapour trail.

The three stars, Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka that make up Orion’s belt, and below that are three points of light making up Orion’s sword.  The centre fuzzy light with the split down the middle is the well known Orion Nebula,  around 1,344 light years away apparently.

Even though they are only pin pricks of light there’s something really special about  identifying and capturing these images. It really fires the imagination. Are any of you folk out there keen on this? and if so any tips or photos would be welcome.

I've still got a lot to learn about Astrophotography but  I’m looking forward to a few more clear nights and a backyard journey into space.