astro
catdynamics | May 27, 2009it appears that my proposal page production rate is approximately constant at about one page per two cups of coffee
catdynamics | May 24, 2009Atlantis has landed safely. Hubble servicing mission is finished.
It woke me up coming down.
Atlantis landing had been delayed for two successive days because of weather, so this morning they diverted the landing site to the backup location at Edward's Air Force Base, just over the mountains from where I am.
Atlantis woke me up, the twin sonic booms of the shuttle coming in across the coast going slightly north-to-south and coming in from the west, were right over our house.
Cat was startled awake, and then the children - actually thought it might have been a small earthquake initially till…
catdynamics | May 23, 2009Obama has nominated Charles Bolden for NASA Administrator and Lori Garver as Deputy Administrator
h/t NASAwatch and kos
catdynamics | May 20, 2009Hubble is let go, and NASA puts out some new must see video from the Solid Rocket Boosters.
Absolutely astonishingly staggering awesome video of the launch, separation, fallback and splashdown.
video shot from one of the Solid Rocket Boosters, during launch up to and including drop off and splashdown!
The last few seconds are dizzying.
Watch all of it, it is worth it, trust me!
These videos from the NASAtelevision channel on youtube are amazing.
also
Hubble release
bye
(click to embiggen)
catdynamics | May 19, 2009Spitzer is out of cryogen.
Cold mission is dead.
Long live the warm mission!
It is official, as of this weekend, the Spitzer Space Telescope is out of coolant (liquid helium), right on schedule.
This will basically end mid-IR observing, MIPS will not be taking data, as I understand it,
nor will IRS.
So no mid-infrared imaging and no infrared spectroscopy now.
IRAC will continue to provide 3.6 and 4.5 μm imaging on 5'x5' field as an extended "warm mission".
Lots of interesting observations in the pipeline, and more to come in the next 2-3 years, funding permitting.
h/t Astro Dyke
catdynamics | May 19, 2009Bob Rutledge and colleagues are blogging the:
Defining the Neutron Star Crust '09 workshop in Santa Fe.
Right now.
X-ray bursts, superbursts and giant flares. Oh my.
Some good stuff, interesting talk summaries.
catdynamics | May 18, 2009Hubble repairs are done.
FGS replaced and blankets installed.
Now it just need to be dropped off in orbit - presumably with as good a reboost as they can manage, and then get Atlantis home safely.
Phew.
The wait for orbit verification, first light and calibration.
catdynamics | May 18, 2009Rumours are that a new Administrator for NASA may be named this week
h/t NASAwatch (comments are interesting)
General Charles Bolden (USMC)
Annapolis grad. 100+ sorties in an A6 Intruder in Vietnam.
Test pilot; shuttle pilot and commander - 4 trips including HST launch.
Assitant Deputy Administrator of NASA under Goldin.
Annapolis deputy; 1 MEF general in Kuwait during Desert Thunder ('98 air campaign);
wing commander.
He testified to the Senate subcommittee on Science and Space in 2006
He reportedly will meet with Obama today.
Could be nominated as early as this week, if all goes well.…
catdynamics | May 17, 2009Good progress on the first four days of Hubble Servicing
The Atlantis servicing mission to Hubble has really highlighted some uses of social media: the NASA twitter channel has provided near live and accurate updates, providing key points and pointers as things happen - first actual interesting use of twitter I have seen;
facebook has also provided interesting information, mainly celebratory wall scribbles from instrument team members.
So, four spacewalks are done, just in case you missed it all:
The old WF/PC2 camera has been removed and replaced with the brand new WFC3 all purpose camera,…
catdynamics | May 14, 2009Astonishing photo of the shuttle Atlantis and Hubble passing in front of the Sun
taken from Vero Beach Florida
click to embiggen
bottom left hand corner - really.
not sunspots
ok, here is the blowup
UPDATE: here is a second shot before HST rendevouz of Atlantis alone
click to embiggen
nice solar granulation
catdynamics | May 14, 2009first spacewalk extended - sounds like stiction on the bolts and nuts
now with bonus EVA video!
catdynamics | May 14, 2009First spacewalk wrapping up, WF/PC2 out, WFC3 in.
Command and Data Handling Unit swapped out.
WF/PC2 removed
Live updates on NASA twitter
WFC3 was installed successfully and signaled it was alive.
SIC&DH is installed.
John is putting on the external attachment for grapples to grab, in case NASA decides to robotically deorbit HST in the future.
Almost done. Gone put on rapid open kits for the HST access doors so future spacwalks can get on with things.
Remarkably successful so far.
catdynamics | May 14, 2009another successful launch of a major astro mission
Successful launch and payload separation of the far infrared telescope Herschel and the microwave background observatory Planck by the European Space Agency
Ariane 5 launch carrying Herschel and Planck
click to embiggen
catdynamics | May 13, 2009Atlantis has Hubble...
Lookin' good.
From NASA TV
leading edge of the right wing got dinged by tank foam, apparently,
shallow 50cm line of gashes on the high T tiles
should be ok, expect they'll check it out...
catdynamics | May 11, 2009The Wide Field/Planetary Camera-2 on the Hubble Space Telescope is being decommissioned, since the servicing mission is putting all the nice new toys on the telescope.
To commemorate the occasion, the Space Telescope Science Institute took one last "pretty picture"
Planetary Nebulae K 4-55
click to embiggen
Starts With A Bang is doing a Favourite WF/PC2 photos series, starting with the Hubble Deep Field.
I need to put up a "favourite WF/PC2 images" from papers I co-authored...
not as famous, but we got some pretty cool images over the years.
I hope it will be a long time before I have to…
catdynamics | May 11, 2009Space Shuttle Atlantis is launching STS-125, the last servicing mission to Hubble
launch is scheduled in 13 minutes,
I am watching on NASA TV
they just cleared all launch constraints, at T-14,
this is a nominal hold scheduled to T-9,
some clouds I hear.
nominal hold released, final countdown resumed
they're retracting the arm
man, I wish they'd skip some of the prescripted inspirational comments they insert into the countdown sequence
AUP started at T-5
main engines steering check T-3
20
10, sparking
main engine ignition
liftoff
looks ok so far
max Q
throttle up
30 km up
SRB burnout and drop…
catdynamics | May 10, 2009we've been kinda low on sunspots for a while as we hit the inter-cycle low;
however, I heard rumours from Iceland that Aurora Borealis had been seen, so I scooted over to Soho to look see
UPDATE: nope, still no sunspots
Couple of nice spot complexes in the upper left.
Haven't checked the polarity to see if they are actually part of the new cycle, but it is likely they are.
Now we'll see if they're one off, or start of a trend...
Silly me, should have checked the other images,
I saw the emission line images and jumped on the magnetogram
Duh...
Here is the visible light image - no spots where…
catdynamics | May 10, 2009As the Hubble servicing mission is going up, hopefully, we contemplate what on Earth is going on with NASA.
Like, why the cuts?
Well, I have no inside info on this, have not talked to anyone back east, so I'm guessing:
first, NASA is just not that much of a priority - too small, and the science stimulus is fairly well covered with NSF and DoE, not to mention NIH and NOAA;
secondly, the Obama transition team did not get what it needed from top levels of NASA, and this did not help expedite things;
thirdly, Obama did well initially getting senior appointees confirmed, but then hit a rash of…
catdynamics | May 7, 2009NASA 2010 budget request is out.
Not very stimulating, especially for Astrophysics.
NASA still does not have a nominated Administrator, and really does not have a direction, even though key and somewhat irrevocable decisions are imminent, in particular on the retirement of the Shuttle and development of the "Constellation" expendable launch system that has been under development.
Maybe Obama is bit distracted, or something.
Anyway, there is a 2010 NASA requested budget
and it sucks.
Apart from Earth Science, the Science directorate outlook is nicely summarized by the headline in the…
catdynamics | April 28, 2009Most distant gamma ray burst yet found by Swift.
GRB 090423 at z=8.2
Official NASA Press Release
GRB 090423 click to embiggen