astrophotography

NASA says it can't yet afford to catch 2/3 of asteroids, potentially extinction level event causing threats. Spacepunks could help with this! What do we know about asteroid spotting and how can we contribute to this search?

At the moment, NASA has identified about five near-Earth objects that pose better than a 1-in-a-million risk of hitting Earth and being big enough to cause serious damage, Johnson said. That number changes from time to time, as new asteroids are added and old ones are removed as information is gathered on their orbits.

The space rocks astronomers are keeping a closest eye on are a 430-foot diameter object that has a 1-in-3,000 chance of hitting Earth in 2048 and a much-talked about asteroid, Apophis, which is twice that size and has a one-in-43,000 chance of hitting in 2036, 2037 or 2069.

Last month, NASA started a new Web site for the public to learn about threatening near-Earth objects.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32387796/ns/technology_and_science-space/

The Perseids meteor shower is coming this around this Tuesday evening so get your friends prepped and get ready to see some serious fire in the sky!

The Perseids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle. The Perseids are so called because the point they appear to come from, called theradiant, lies in the constellation Perseus. Meteor showers occur when Earth moves through a meteor stream. The stream in this case is called the Perseid cloud and it stretches along the orbit of the Comet Swift-Tuttle. The cloud consists of particles ejected by the comet as it passed by the Sun. Most of the dust in the cloud today is approximately a thousand years old. However, there is also a relatively young filament of dust in the stream that was pulled off the comet in 1862. The rate of meteors originating from this filament is much higher than for the older part of the stream.

Links to learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseids 

Instructions to view them: http://stardate.org/nightsky/meteors

Astrophotography is taking images of space for fun and astronomy.

This gallery of the best astrophotography of the last 35 years shows some of the most amazing glimpses of the universe ever seen.

On June 3, Hackerbot Labs recovered AHAB3 and its precious SD cargo bearing pictures from the blue beyond. Spacepunk Alex Peake met the Hackerbot crew shortly after through Willow Bl00 at Maker Faire while exhibiting Tactical Corsets for the first time. They enticed him to come to Toorcamp. While checking them out to make sure they weren't going to steal his kidneys, he came across the AHAB3 pictures in 3ric's flickr. Excited to see they were fellow spacepunks, he flew to Seattle and joined them at the Titan missile silo for the first North-American hacker camp where Spacepunk was publically launched. The photos AHAB3 took became the first background picture for Spacepunk.org.
Read their exciting initial announcement: 

Two weeks ago we sent our buddy AHAB3 up into the air. About two hours into the flight and 56062 feet up, we stopped getting position updates. We could hear it transmitting, but it just kept repeating the same position.

Our recovery teams drove around and tried to use the secondary beacon to figure out where it was. We got some good headings using the direction-finding equipment, but then lost all signal from the payload.

We headed back to Seattle, sure we had lost a third payload.

Last Tuesday, 3ric got a call on his cell phone. A forest ranger in Idaho had stumbled across our bumblebee! He hiked it out, and a few days later shipped it off to us.

Monday morning we got a nice present at the lab, gingerly removed the SD card, and were greeted with:

Tonight the we’re going to go over the payload with a fine-toothed comb, and catalogue what’s broken and what’s still working. A number of systems malfunctioned during the flight, so it’s vital to know why if we want to do this again.

More photos can be found here

On my 27th birthday, the idea of Spacepunk was born when I saw photos of Earth from space that students had taken with their own space probe. I thought, "If students can get to space, it's time for us to boldly go with attitude! The biggest obstacles to our getting to space in the long run are the threats to human prosperity and species survival here on Earth. If we want to boldly go, we have to boldly grow up."

Students tie £56 camera to balloon and send it to edge of space to capture stunning images of Earth

By Mail Foreign Service Last updated at 3:35 PM on 17th March 2009 Comments (21)

Teenagers with a £56 camera and latex balloon have managed to take stunning pictures from 20 miles above Earth.

Proving that you don't need Google's billions or the BBC weather centre's resources, the four Spanish students managed to send a camera-operated weather balloon into the stratosphere.

Taking atmospheric readings and photographs, the Meteotek team of IES La Bisbal school in Spanish Catalonia completed their incredible experiment at the end of February this year.

Astronomic achievement: An image of the stratosphere taken by the group of four Spanish students by tying a camera to a balloon and sending it to the edge of space

Don't look down: Part of the balloon can be seen in the lower right corner of this image taken by the £56 camera 20 miles above Earth

Building the electronic sensor components from scratch, Gerard Marull Paretas, Sergi Saballs Vil, Martm Gasull Morcillo and Jaume Puigmiquel Casamort were able to send their heavy duty £43 latex balloon to the edge of space and take readings of its ascent.

Under the guidance of teacher Jordi Fanals Oriol, the budding scientists, all aged 18 to 19, followed the progress of their balloon using hi-tech sensors communicating with Google Earth.

'Meteotek was our experiment to see if we could accurately measure the Earth's atmospheric conditions at 30,000 metres, take pictures to prove the experiment and then recover the instruments attached to the balloon after its deflation,' said team leader Paretas, 18.

'We were overwhelmed at our results, especially the photographs. To send our handmade craft to the edge of space is incredible.'

Nasa take note: The digital camera attached to the weather balloon that snapped the incredible images

To successfully conduct the experiment, the team had to account for a wide variety of variables and rely on a lot of luck.

'The balloon we chose was inflated with helium to just over two metres and weighed just 1,500g,' said Paretas.

'It was able to carry the sensor equipment and digital Nikon camera which weighed 1.5kg.

'However, when we launched at 9.10am on that morning, the critical point for the experiment was to see if the balloon would make it past 10,000m, or 30,000ft, which is the altitude that commercial airliners fly at.'

Due to the changing atmospheric pressures, the helium weather balloon carrying the meteorological equipment was expected to inflate to a maximum of nine and a half metres as it travelled upwards at 270 metres per minute.

Innovative: The students and their teacher Jordi Fanals Oriol

'We took readings as the balloon rose and mapped its progress using Google Earth and the onboard radio receiver,' said Paretas.

'At over 100,000ft, the balloon lost its inflation and the equipment was returned to the earth.

'We travelled 10km to find the sensors and photographic card, which was still emitting its signal, even though it had been exposed to the most extreme conditions.'

The pupils' amazing school science project has already caught the attention of the University of Wyoming in the US, and the Meteotek team keep those interested updated with regular blogs and updates to their Twitter feed.

'It was a great experience and a successful flight after spending a lot of time, even after-school hours, on afternoons and during my summer holidays,' said Paretas.

'We put in a lot of effort, we did a lot of tests before flights.

'We also have learned that in practice, things are not so simple and in the field problems appear that a textbook can't help you with.'