A few months back, I reviewed an app for the iPhone (for which there also exists an iPad version) by Touch Press called “The Elements”. I loved it; I thought it was awesome. I thought it was a great demonstration as to what can be done in the book realm with some of the tools we now have available.

Now, I can’t tell you if Touch Press’ newest release, “Solar System for iPad”, created in conjunction with Faber and Faber and science writer Marcus Chown, is as good. But it looks really good, and I’m hoping to have a chance to test it out myself sometime soon. But in the meantime… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Last night Kevin and I watched the lunar eclipse. It was cold but clear outside as we watched the earth’s shadow pass over the moon, and I was able to snap a few photos with my Canon G11. I didn’t have a special lens attachment, I wasn’t using a tripod, these aren’t going to win any awards, and I sure wish that I had planned ahead and got a camera mount for our telescope … but even so, we had a lot of fun watching our fully moonlit yard go dramatically black.

How about you? Did you catch the eclipse? Were you able to take any pictures?

Has it REALLY been seven years already? Back on August 27th of 2003, Mars came the closest it had to the earth in 60,000 years. It was an amazing astrological event and I watched through my telescope and had a wonderful time waking up my young kids and sharing it with them (and no, they don’t remember it anymore).

But even back then misinformation was spread: the truth was that as Mars came ~56 million kilometers from Earth it would be approximately 1/75 the size of a full moon, so using a 75x telescope lens you would get a wonderful view of the red planet.

But as the information spread in yet another version… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

I have been fascinated with space travel for as long as I can remember.  I have been to see the local planetary shows time and time again.  I have watched more specials, movies and Internet videos than I want to mention.

A name that has been brought up time and time again is Buzz Aldrin.  Remember him? He is the one who piloted the lunar module on Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing in history. On July 20, 1969, he was the second person to set foot on the Moon, following mission commander Neil Armstrong. He’s one of our leading space exploration advocates and continues to chart a course for future space travel from Planet Earth to… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

I love IMAX movies because they are always beautifully shot, intelligently narrated, and because the impressive screen and massive sound system combo is generally enough to make even the most meh topic appear amazingly inspired. Yeah, I said it – there have been IMAX movies that I watched on subjects only because they were IMAX movies. But based on the subject matter and the preview, the upcoming Hubble 3D movie is already in the running to be my all-time favorite IMAX movie.

Through the power of IMAX® 3D, Hubble 3D will enable movie-goers to journey through distant galaxies to explore the grandeur and mysteries of our celestial surroundings, and accompany space-walking astronauts as they attempt the most difficult and important tasks in NASA’s history. The

What an amazing thing! The Imaging Source has introduced a line of low-noise astronomy cameras that provide amateur photographers with the necessary tools to take amazing photographs using their telescopes.

Priced from $390 to $640, the monochrome and color camera models are available “with and without an IR cut filter in three resolutions: 640×480, 1024×768 and 1280×960. The astronomy cameras deploy low noise CCD chips from Sony, which have an exposure time of up to 60 minutes and a maximum frame rate of up to 60 fps.”

Granted, the quality of your pictures will also depend upon the strength of the telescope the camera is attached to, but what an affordable and empowering device for backyard astronomers everywhere!… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

We are all feeling the financial pinch!    Blue Plate Special is a weekly review of bargain apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Nothing over $.99.

What geek does not love space?!?!  Over the past few months, my iPhone has gained a handful of apps for space enthusiasts.  My 5 year old son and I love to sit and look at these apps to learn about the planets and solar systems.  One night this summer he asked why we cannot look at space ships while we were looking at the stars using pocket universe.  I did not really have an answer.  NASA has come out with their own FREE app to follow current space missions.… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

The moment that we’ve all (or at least some of us) have all been waiting for will arrive on Thursday. That’s when NASA is slated to release 15 higher quality video key moments from the July 1969 live broadcast of the Apollo 11 moon landing. This release is part of an Apollo 11 restoration project slated for completion by the fall. Watch the live unveiling on NASA TV at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv or just wait for their invariable YouTube debut.

NASA TV via The Register

If you ask my wife, the money she spent buying me a telescope a few years ago was wasted. If you ask me or my sons, we’d disagree. It isn’t that we use it all that much, but I chalk that up to living in the Northeast – it is hard to hit that small window when the temperature is right for standing outside at night and it gets dark early enough that we can all enjoy it together. The folks at Vito Technology have a great solution – Star Walk, an educational astronomy app for the iPhone andiPod Touch that allows you to browse the night sky right from the palm of your hand without regard for time or weather!

Shuttle Astronaut Mike Massimino received a lot of press for being the first person to “Tweet from space”. Or did he? New reports are now arriving that perhaps what really happened is @astro_mike mailed his tweets home via email where they were posted by someone on the ground. You know, sort of how your grandma or grandpa may ask you to take a written note and convert it to an email? Next year maybe NASA can add the free Twitter service to their budget.

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NASA astronaut Mike Massimino has been Twittering up a storm in advance of his upcoming trip to maintain the Hubble Space Telescope. He’s managed to attract over 18,500 followers online and while he only has 18 updates – one has to wonder whether NASA will seize the PR value of a Twittering Astronaut.

After all, Twitter is in the news everywhere and is the hot fad of the moment. Celebrities are Twittering and sending pictures of their daily life – why not Astronauts? Which raises the question of whether we may see the first Tweets from space on this upcoming space mission?

Astro_Mike via The Register

In 1980, PBS aired a 13 part series called Cosmos: a Personal Voyage, written by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan and Steven Soter, and narrated by Carl (1934-1996). He was an acclaimed astronomer and astrochemist; but beyond his contributions to science, what made Carl so unique was that he was able to explain issues of biology, chemistry and astronomy in terms that even a child could understand and in a manner that was comfortable and never condescending.

With Carl speaking in his distinctive lilt, dreamy music by Vangelis, and plenty of breathtaking video of the inner-workings of the human body, the earth, the planets, our solar system and beyond, Cosmos is an extravaganza for both the mind and senses…and now you can watch it for FREE. Hey… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

According to astronomer Lyman Spitzer’s 1946 paper “Astronomical advantages of an extraterrestrial observatory”, there were two main advantages that a space-based observatory would have over ground-based telescopes. The first advantage was that “the angular resolution (smallest separation at which objects can be clearly distinguished) would be limited only by diffraction, rather than by the turbulence in the atmosphere, which causes stars to twinkle and is known to astronomers as seeing.” The second advantage was that “a space-based telescope could observe infrared and ultraviolet light, which are strongly absorbed by the atmosphere.”

The United Kingdom launched the first orbiting solar telescope in 1962, and in 1968 NASA was firming up plans to launch their own by 1979. Due to funding cuts and red tape, it wasn’t until 1978 when congress finally approved $36,000,000 to fund a space telescope, which was ultimately named after Edwin Hubble, an astronomer “who made one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century when he discovered that the universe was expanding.”

The Hubble Space Telescope was finally set to launch in October 1986, but due to the Challenger disaster earlier that year, all launches were ceased. Space shuttle flights resumed again in 1988, and on April 24, 1990, “shuttle mission STS-31 saw Discovery launch the telescope successfully into its planned orbit.”

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by the Space Shuttle Discovery in April 1990. It is named after the American astronomer Edwin Hubble. Although not the first space telescope, the Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, and is well-known as both a vital research tool and a public relations boon for astronomy. The HST is a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency, and is one of NASA’s Great Observatories, along with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope. [source]

According to Wikipedia, since its launch the Hubble Space Telescope has managed to return images of galaxies billions of light years away. So then consider this: that would mean that the light from some of these distant objects may have been traveling for longer than the earth has been in existence – which is a concept that I find completely mind boggling.

If you ever needed a reminder that our earth was just a tiny part of something much bigger, these Hubble images should do the trick…

This “ribbon” is actually a thin “section of a supernova remnant caused by a stellar explosion that occurred more than 1,000 years ago.”… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Want to watch $100,000 of US taxpayer money in orbit? This YouTube video allegedly shows the tool bag that slipped out of Astronaut Heidi Stefanyshyn-Piper’s mitts. There’s even an (un)official name for this orbiting bag – ISS Toobag. According to a post on Space.com, Edward Light spotted the orbitting tool bag using 10 x 50 binoculars from his backyard in Lakewood New Jersey. Is this really the tool bag? I have no idea but think of how fun it will be to show your relatives after Thanksgiving dinner.

If that doesn’t impress them, fool them with this phony Child Exchange Network or send a chill down their spine with this phony felony search which randomly reports all sorts of felons living in your neighborhood (fake).

Physorg.com

If big telescopes and outer space are your thing, you may be interested in this trial offer from Global-Rent-A-Scope (GRAS). You can take control of a ground-based, Hubble-like remote imaging telescope that is located in Australia and create your own images.

Designed for ease of operation, even a child with little or no previous experience can take command of the controls of this ground-based remote astronomical telescope system. All GRAS remote telescope systems operate in a very similar concept to the Hubble space telescope, with the notable exception that these system are ground based.