* Check out the many cool animated GIFs constructed from sequences of images from the Cassini mission that illustrate the dynamism of the Saturn system: Dancing With Saturn – The Planetary Society. Here’s an example:
NASA / JPL / SSI / Animation by Bill Dunford Epimetheus and Family Epimetheus, as tracked by Cassini over the course of almost an hour as the moonlet orbited in the ring plane, along with other members of Saturn’s family of worlds.
a project by Daniela de Paulis in collaboration with Jan van Muijlwijk and the CAMRAS team
OPTICKS is a live radio transmission performance between the Earth and the Moon during which images are sent to the Moon and back as radio signals. The project has been realized by visual artist Daniela de Paulis (IT/NL) in collaboration with Jan van Muijlwijk and the CAMRAS radio amateurs association based at Dwingeloo radio telescope (NL). Each live performance is made possible thanks to the collaboration of radio enthusiasts Howard Ling (UK), Bruce Halász (Brazil) and Daniel Gautschi (CH).
OPTICKS employes a technology called Earth-Moon-Earth or Moonbounce, developed shortly after WWII by the US Military as a form of reliable radio communication also used for espionage purposes. EME uses the Moon as a natural reflector for radio signals.
In October 2009 Daniela de Paulis and Jan van Muijlwijk started pioneering a new application of Moonbounce technology, called Visual Moonbounce, which allows sending images to the Moon and back, combining Radio Astronomy with amateur radio technologies.
The title OPTICKS is inspired by Newton’s discoveries of the light spectrum, reflection and refraction. Similarly, the colours composing an image – converted into radio signals – are bounced off the Moon (reflected and refracted) by its surface during each live performance.
The performance is introduced by live sounds of amateurs radio signals captured by the Dwingeloo antenna tracking the moon.
Here is a video of one of their performances from 2012:
Go to AMSAT News for the latest headlines about developments in amateur and student satellites and for updates about amateur radio on the ISS.
ANS 089 Weekly AMSAT Bulletin – March 29, 2014:
* FUNcube-1 / AO-73 Transponder Test – March 29
* Eighth Annual AMSAT/TAPR Banquet Speaker Announced
* AMSAT Awards Announced
* Radar outage prompts delay of Falcon 9 launch
* Lithuanian President’s greetings message sent from space
* PRN codes for KickSat Sprites released
* New frequency for Ukrainian PolyITAN-1 CubeSat
* Upcoming AMSAT Events
* ARISS News
* Satellite Shorts from All Over
Space travelers that achieve hero status often make daring space walks, landing on other heavenly bodies or narrowly escaping death. But, in my book, Vladimir Vasyutin should be given a special place in the Hall of Fame. He suffered very much from illness while in space. Some of his colleagues said he hid his ailment before launch and it got worse in flight. Can all astronauts honestly say they are innocent of this very human behaviour? The final result was bad for Vladimir Vasyutin and he paid dearly for any wrong-doing and probably felt that he had failed his crew, the space program and his nation badly. But the odds were against him. Still, he fought valiantly and stayed about 65 days in orbit during his only space mission. He retired from cosmonaut duty for medical reasons in 1987. I feel much sympathy for him. Life can be very tough.Vladimir Vasyutin, space hero, passed away in 2004, at the age of fifty. I think he is well worth remembering.
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