Space In General

Ah yes. That famous culture and heritage of the Space Force, an organization that has existed for about three years and done pretty much nothing.
 
^^^^ This. The Space Force is essentially separating the Air Force Space Command into its own branch, just as the Air Force itself was created as a separate branch out of the Army Air Corps. It's still organized under the Air Force, just as the Marine Corps is under the Navy.
 
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The 26th and final mission of the year for SpaceX goes off without a hitch. Being that it was a NRO launch with super secret payload, they concentrated on the landing of the booster, which came back to land at LZ-1.

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Recent news leak highlights discovery from venerable Parkes Observatory in Australia.


The Parkes 64m Radio Telescope

 
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@R1600Turbo

Would it be fair to say Starship SN8 etc. are prototype Mars colonial transport ships and nothing else? Are you ready to sign up for this vision?
 
Dotini
@R1600Turbo

Would it be fair to say Starship SN8 etc. are prototype Mars colonial transport ships and nothing else? Are you ready to sign up for this vision?
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They will be used for more than Mars transport. Some will be re-fueling ships, some will be for transport from lunar orbit. But this is, at minimum, SpaceX's future. They already have so much invested and their facility down there in Boca Chica Texas is expanding on a daily basis. Starlink will be the main funding source for this endeavor, along with their usual contracts. At some point Falcon 9 will become obsolete and Starship/SuperHeavy will be their main vehicle. I personally have signed up long ago. (hence my frequent updates in here)

Speaking of updates, SN9 has undergone a successful ambient pressure test on Monday and (we assume) a successful cryo test today. It has a few more tests to do but we should see it fly within the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile, SN10's nose cone has been put into position to be attached in the next day or two. SN11 is moving along, and a mount has been put into the mid-bay to start stacking for SN12. The first SuperHeavy booster is also under construction. Elon thinks we'll see it fly "within a few months".

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Also, this is a great shot from the ULA Atlas V flight from July 30th.

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Nice. I didn't get the moons, but by using a lower EV I was able to get the rings! I never expected to resolve the rings of Saturn with a DSLR and just 300mm!

I was out of town and didn't have my tripod, so all my shots were handheld at quick shutter speeds and high ISO. I did try to prop the camera up on the roof of the car with my jacket wadded up underneath it and using the self-timer to trip the shutter, and I tried longer exposures and lower ISO, but anything long enough to get the moons had too much motion streaking in it. So I got just this one shot that was even remotely usable. Still... THE RINGS!!! Handheld!!!! With a plain old ordinary camera!!!! :eek:

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Wow, that's stunning! Yeah I had accidentally overexposed everything. When I tried to do it the next few days, the weather sadly didn't agree. I think I could have also been able to see the rings.

If your DSLR has a crop sensor, then 300mm could be around 450mm on a full frame equivalent. Mine was shot at 210mm with an APS-C lens on a full frame camera which would be 315mm on an actual full frame lens. I had a tripod with a self-timer at 1 second. Any movement from pressing the shutter shook the camera too much. The wind also effected it a lot so I had to stand in the direction of where the wind was coming from :lol:
 
ProjectWHaT
Mine was shot at 210mm with an APS-C lens on a full frame camera which would be 315mm on an actual full frame lens.
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Not to nitpick, but it's what I do best... :lol: That's not how the factor conversion works. 210mm is 210mm, and 300mm is 300mm. The field of view is what separates crop-sensor and full-frame cameras, and yes, the 300mm on my crop-frame camera gives the field of view of a 450mm lens on a full-frame camera. 210mm on a full-frame camera gives the field of view of... 210mm. If it was mounted on a crop-frame camera, the field of view would be about 315mm equivalent. The fact that it's an APS-C lens doesn't change its reach on a full frame camera, it's still 210mm. (Unless the camera switches modes to match the lens, which may well happen, I don't know how Canon cameras handle that, but current Nikon cameras will go to DX mode when a DX lens is mounted. If it reduces the sensor area to match the lens, then you did have a full-frame-equivalent field of about 315mm. If not, then it's a 210, period.)
 
Famine
Puerto Rico's governor has pledged $8m to help rebuild the Arecibo facility:

https://www.elnuevodia.com/english/...to-rebuild-the-arecibo-observatory-telescope/
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A nice gesture.
Puerto Rico Pledges to Rebuild Arecibo Observatory Bigger and Better

Paul SeaburnJanuary 7, 2021

The collapse and eventual demolition of the giant Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico brought more sympathy to astronomers than they’ve ever seen – who knew so many people around the world were so interested in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI)? While the outpouring for a fallen radio telescope could have been part of the overwhelming stress that was 2020, it seemed sincere. So does the excitement surrounding an announcement by the departing governor of Puerto Rico that her last act was to approve funding to begin reconstruction of Arecibo. Is this a cause for celebration or a set-up for future budgetary disappointment?

“The Government of Puerto Rico states, as a matter of public policy, its conviction to the reconstruction of the Arecibo Radio Telescope and the prompt resumption of world class science and education at the Arecibo Observatory.”

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Start with stronger supports

Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced wants the Arecibo Observatory to come back bigger and better than ever, with a new design using a larger effective aperture to provide a wider field of view for scanning the sky for SETI communications. Her beleaguered territory, still suffering from the effects of deadly hurricanes and flooding, managed to scrape together $8 million from past budget surpluses and unnamed sources, but that’s a drop in the proverbial satellite dish – barely enough for the cost of cleaning up the debris of the fallen telescope and preparing the grounds for a new one, which is expected to cost several hundred million dollars.

“The FY2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act released today directs the National Science Foundation (NSF) to provide answers on what happened to the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico and what comes next. Arecibo collapsed last month after supporting cables gave way, but the underlying cause is still being investigated.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2021 which called for the National Science Foundation – the government organization which owned Arecibo and contracted with the University of Central Florida (UCF) to manage it – to conduct an investigation and provide a report within 60 days on the cost of clearing the site in a safe and environmentally sound manner, how the other facilities at Arecibo will be preserved, and what it will cost to build a replacement with “comparable technology.”

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Despite these moves to fund initial developments and estimate costs of rebuilding, budgets are budgets and both Puerto Rico and the U.S. Congress have much on their plates (an understatement if there ever was one), so communication with extraterrestrials will obviously have a low priority. It’s unfortunate that the Arecibo Observatory collapse happened in 2020 with the worldwide pandemic rightfully demanding attention and funding. At the same time, China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) went operational, giving humans and ETs a bigger, better and faster way to communicate. If the usage of FAST can be shared among astronomers of all nations (a big if), the emotional tug of rebuilding the beloved Arecibo weakens.

Whatever the outcome, the legacy of the Arecibo Observatory will live on. The NSF has archived data from the telescope available for researchers, and other instruments not damaged by the collapse will be placed back into operation as soon as possible.

ET may not be able to phone home again from Arecibo, but it will still have the option to replay some oldies.
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First SpaceX launch of the year is in progress as I type this, but the 1st stage (on it's 4th flight) has landed successfully on the drone ship. And pretty damn close to center.

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The following snippets are from https://www.timeanddate.com/time/earth-faster-rotation.html

The speed of the Earth's rotation varies constantly because of the complex motion of its molten core, oceans and atmosphere, plus other effects.

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Variation of daylength throughout 2020. The length of day is shown as the difference in milliseconds (ms) between the Earth's rotation and 86,400 seconds.


Leap Seconds Keep Us in Sync with Earth
If the Earth's rotation gets too far out of sync with the super-steady beat of atomic clocks, a positive or negative leap second can be used to bring them back into alignment.

Since the system of leap seconds was introduced in 1972, the Earth's rotation has generally been a bit sluggish. So far, there have been 27 leap seconds, and they have all been positive. In other words, they have all added an extra second to our clocks, enabling the Earth to catch up.

Recently, however, the Earth has been getting quicker, and no leap second has been required since 2016. If the Earth's rotation continues to quicken, we may at some point require a negative leap second. If this happens, our clocks would skip a second, in order to keep up with the hurrying Earth.


@timeanddate.com

Edited to remove redundant graphic.
 
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