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Posts Tagged “

Astronomy

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spy sats

Photographer Puts 189 Non-Existent Spy Satellites on Show

"Yesterday up in the air I snapped a sat that wasn't there"— so might photographer Trevor Paglen say about his show at the University of California at Berkeley Art Museum. It's a series of photos of 189 secret satellites: the ones that officially "don't exist." Dubbed The Other Night Sky the photos are time-lapse images of the snoop-sats moving through the night sky, made with a custom star-tracker. Apparently it's his attempt to draw similarities between government secrecy and Galileo's historic tangles with the Catholic church. Found with the help of an amateur astronomer, each photo is of a named spy sat, and they're quietly beautiful—if you can forget the eerie spying aspect. The show runs until September 14. [Wired]

12:40 PM on Mon Jun 23 2008
By Kit Eaton
10,034 views, 48 comments

Latest by AndersonBMX: i cant wake up at 5:30 am to take a good picture of the ISS and this guy finds 189 satellites? i'm feeling so donw... more »

space

Fresnel Telescope Will Spot M-Class Planets 30 Light Years Away

Scientists might be giving up on the notion of sending ridiculously large pieces of glass into space. Using a Fresnel-zone lens instead, astronomers at Observatoire Midi Pyrenees in France propose to take extremely high-contrast images at vast distances without a large lens or mirror. A 30-meter Fresnel telescope will provide visual confirmation of Earth-like planets up to 30 light years away. Since it can also observe a wide spectrum range including UV and IR, it can do follow-up detection of life signs, too. The main advantage of the Fresnel telescope is, of course, the fact that it's a perforated sheet of roll-up metal instead of heavy, breakable glass. But there are some major reasons it's not super easy to just whip up one of these telescopes in the machine shop: More »

10:45 AM on Fri May 2 2008
By Wilson Rothman
6,034 views, 37 comments

Latest by Barion: @Buran: Well, M-Class is a Star Trek term. And in Enterprise, they revealed that the M stands for Minshara, a Vulcan word. more »

nasa

German Schoolboy Corrects NASA's Math - We're All Doomed

NASA has been forced to check its math after a 13-year-old German boy wrote to tell them their calculations for the probability of an asteroid hitting earth were incorrect. Agency bosses had predicted a one-in-45,000 chance of an interstellar object bringing an end to life as we know it; that was until teen Nico Marquardt told them that the figure was closer to one in 450. More »

8:30 AM on Wed Apr 16 2008
By Chris Magor
38,112 views, 115 comments

astro watch

Astronomer's Watch Tells Best Time to Watch the Skies

At first glance this watch looks pretty ordinary, until you notice the lack of minute hands and the 24-hour dial around the edge. It's actually designed to help amateur astronomers work out the best conditions for sky-watching, so it tracks sunset and sunrise, moon phase and moonrise/set times. All you have to do is tap in your location from one of its 583 pre-programmed cities, and its combination of hands and detailed LCD displays will tell you all you need to know. If only it could predict the cloud-cover conditions, eh? You're going to have to really enjoy astronomy if you want to buy it, though: it's $495.95 from Hammacher Schlemmer. [OhGizmo]

5:30 AM on Wed Apr 16 2008
By Kit Eaton
2,795 views, 14 comments

Latest by n/a: Don't get me wrong I think the Yes Watch is possibly the coolest watch out there (even though I don't have one), but I thought it was the coolest thing the first time I saw it on Gizmodo. [tinyurl.com] more »

laser

One-Petawatt Laser Opens For Business In Texas

In the basement of the physics building at the University of Texas in Austin is the world's most powerful laser. Switched on for the first time last week, it has an output of a quadrillion watts—in terms of zeros, that's 1,000,000,000,000,000. Wired has gotten its hands on some stunning pictures of the $7-million installation, and has a detailed explanation of how the thing works. The laser will be used to recreate astronomical goings-on, such as supernovae and, as the manager of the laser project says, "You'd have to go out into space and hang out with an exploding star to observe what we plan to observe here in Texas." [Wired]

8:01 AM on Wed Apr 9 2008
By AddyDugdale
10,329 views, 62 comments

Latest by n/a: Great Scott! If my calculations are correct, and I read the conversion chart right, that's 1 million gigawatts. Looks like it's a lot less pesky than to deal with Lybian Nationalists or the Russian Mafia for plutonium. Now if only more »

astronomy

SmartStar Automagically Shows You the Universe on the Cheap

Mount a telescope on the SmartStar Cube, and you'll have yourself the lowest-cost way to automatically gaze into the infinite and beyond. This $199 SmartStar Go To AltAzimuth Telescope Mount, otherwise known as the Cube, gives you computerized pointing and tracking, where you select a star, planet or galaxy in a huge database, and it automatically moves your scope into place so you can see it, up close and personal. You can trick out this scope mount much further than that, too. More »

12:45 PM on Wed Nov 28 2007
By Charlie White
4,309 views, 10 comments

Latest by zingbot: @darex: Dude, this is Gizmodo, so that telescope had better double as a cell phone, warn me of intergalactic attack and fetch my Segway to get me back in the house in time for for "Dancing with the Stars". And boating more »

astronomy

Meade's mySKY Shows Us Our Sky

If you love the great big skies as much as we used to love the iPhone (oh, it hurts) then you may be interested in Meade's mySKY Personal Guide. The mySKY is a tool to aid you in all your galactic gazing; it contains 30,000 unique items it can identify up in the great spacious expanse, 500 audio descriptions to keep you well briefed and a built in GPS receiver to ensure you know exactly which Martian planet you are eyeing. More »

10:35 AM on Sat Sep 29 2007
By Haroon Malik
3,759 views, 9 comments

Latest by scarbrtj: Greetings Starfighter! You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Zur and the Kodan Armada! Prepare for target light-practice, Starfighter! more »

mario galaxy

Control a Telescope Using Your Wii Remote


An ingenious tinkerer over at Cloudy Nights Telescope Reviews decided that the standard remote for his Orion Atlas EQG telescope was too clunky. So he decided to modify the telescope to be controlled by his Wii Remote. Now with the simple flick of the wrist or finger he can control the direction and Right Ascension/Declination of his telescope. This will definitely give new meaning to Mario Galaxy. [CNTR via Makezine]

5:00 AM on Thu Jul 26 2007
By blongo3
1,782 views, 1 comment

galactic peeping tom

World's Largest Telescope Opens its Eye in Canary Islands

It has taken seven years to construct, and at a cost of almost $180 million, but the Great Canary Telescope - now the world's largest stargazer - is up and running. Situated on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria Las Palmas, off the African coast, the GTC is 4 per cent larger than the Keck telescopes at Mauna Kea, in Hawaii. Wanna look inside? More »

4:29 AM on Fri Jul 13 2007
By AddyDugdale
14,819 views, 18 comments

Latest by fastm3driver: Is this it? [maps.google.com],+17%C2%B052%E2%80%B2W&ie=UTF8&ll=28.756462,-17.891925&spn=0.001488,0.001816&t=h&z=19&om=1 I feel like god would feel if he had googlemaps more »

second star to the right

Space Navigator Star Locator For Astronomers in a Hurry

Space%20Navigator.jpegGive the Space Navigator your time and location, and it will let you know where over 60 of the brightest stars are, a few dozen constellations, and visible planets. It's even programmed with upcoming astronomical events up until the year 2020, and comes with 20 star charts. That's a lot of information to pack on there, and it doesn't look like it'll be easy to read unless you've brushed up on your Astronomy 101. More »

12:45 PM on Tue Jul 3 2007
By kevinhall2
3,315 views, 10 comments

Latest by subyfan: @PEPE THE KING PRAWN It has illumination: "The black arms on the side can act as a stand, or can illuminate the pad with different colored lights." But still, a mechanical star chart? Please, this is 21st century, as far as more »

digital cameras

Dalsa Develops 111-Megapixel CCD

Dalsa Semiconductor has manufactured a CCD that can record 111 megapixels of data—that's a 10560x10560-pixel frame, needing a gargantuan 425MB of storage space for just one picture. The CDD itself is huge—four inches square. More »

12:45 PM on Tue Jun 20 2006
By Charlie White
579 views, 2 comments

gadgets

Night Navigator Star Finder

The next time we go out with our wives to stargaze, we'll definitely take along the Night Navigator Star finder. The handheld device will tell you where your favorite constellation or your zodiac sign in almost instantly. Other features: More »

5:40 PM on Thu May 18 2006
By Jason Chen
872 views, Comment

gadgets

Planisphere Watch

This is a hot little quartz watch with a built-in planisphere which shows you the constellations of the northern hemisphere on a glow-in-the-dark face. Not bad for a $50 watch. It even has a rubber bracelet and luminescent hands. It's sold out right now, but it does look pretty hot. More »

12:45 PM on Tue May 16 2006
By johnb
468 views, Comment

gadgets

Celestron SkyScout Is Almost As Cool As A Pink Floyd Laser Light Show

When I was a kid it was enough to stick those glow-in-the-dark stars and planets on the ceiling. At first, I tried to do a scale model of the universe but realized there was no scale that would make any sense in my bedroom. I got a bit older and turned the ceiling into a Van Gogh Starry Night-inspired trip-o-sphere. A month later, it became clear that the Starry Night was even dorkier than the scale model of the universe, and that I would never be able to convince a girl to come over and listen to my Pink Floyd albums, anyhow. More »

9:53 AM on Mon Dec 12 2005
By gizmodo.com
89 views, 1 comment

Latest by OldElvis: Now watch it cost a Gazillion bucks which will put it out of range for most kids, who might get a kick out of it. It does look pretty cool though. more »