26 August 2014

I went down to Grace Plaza a little while ago to try to Photograph a bright flare from Iridium 15.  ISS Detector/Heavens Above were predicting it at magazine -8.4 while CalSky said -7.0.  I don't think it was as bright as some of the recent dimmer flares that I have seen.  I initially set up in the seating area and changed location there because I felt Vega was too close to the Grace building.  Then a minute or two before the flare I removed to the NW corner of the lot and set up by the seating wall.  The flare occurred to the lower right of Vega and was still bright when the satellite went behind the Grace building.  I had considered going to Bryant Park but wasn't shure what time the spotlights up on the MetLife bui-ding get turned on so Grace Plaza seemed a better option.  When Vega became visible I thought about Bryant Park again but thought it was too close to flare time to change horses.  The air felt very humid when I first went outside but I soon got used to it.

ISS Detector

A flash from Iridium 15 will be visible from New York City, on Tuesday, 26 Aug 20:13:53
Visible in the SE (124°)
Elevation: 67°
Brightness: -8.4

20h13m53s

CalSky

Iridium 15
Very bright Flare in TwilightFlare from MMA1 (Right antenna)  
Magnitude=-7.0mag
Azimuth=123.9° SE   altitude= 67.3° 
in constellation Lyra

35 minutes after sunset

The first light that appears in the open sky is Vega.  Iridium 15 appears down near the edge of the building on the right.

25 August 2014

I went down to Pier 13, at least I think it is Pier 13, this morning to try to observe the ISS flying by Saturn. I wasn't able to find Saturn so I didn't see ISS either.

/CalSky graphic

Mobile Observatory graphic

13h05m31.69s

ISS Close to Venus. Separation=0.407°  

Position Angle=135.7°, Position angle vertex=107.5°

Angular diameter=59.0"  size=109.0m x 73.0m x 27.5m

Satellite at Azimuth=215.8° SW   Altitude= 61.8°  Distance=468.5 km

Magnitude=-0.1mag

In a clock-face concept, the satellite will seem to move toward 11:25

Angular Velocity=49.0'/s

Sun elevation=+60°  Elongation from Sun=16°

The sun looked nice though.

24 August 2014

I went up to TotL tonight to see Saturn and Mars. They were OK.
I started off the night with a twilight flare from Iridium 82 at mag -1.6

Flare from solar panels
Magnitude=-1.6mag
Azimuth=144.5° SE altitude= 15.8°
in constellation Sagittarius

I set the camera's elevation based on the setting Manfroto 410's setting circle and zoomed to maximum optical zoom and it was right there.

LightTrac graphic

Next was an ISS pass. It took it a long time to get above the local horizon then I started tracking it but lost it somehow and was tracking something else. When I finally realized the satellite was way over to the left it had already passed it greatest point and Saturn and Mars. Once the satellite set behind the trees I panned back around and may have gotten Saturn and Mars on the end of the video.

The ISS will be visible from New York City, on Sunday, 24 Aug 20:21:07
Starting in the WNW (292°)
Ending in the SSE (154°) at 20:27:21
Maximum elevation: 37°
Brightness: -1.8
Appears 20h18m42s 4.1mag az:299.8° WNW horizon
Culmination 20h23m59s -2.6mag az:223.2° SW h:36.5°
at Meridian 20h25m08s -2.8mag az:180.0° S h:27.2°
Disappears 20h27m38s -1.5mag az:151.7° SSE h:7.1°

LightTrac graphic

I did a little general observing of bright stuff and tried to locate some of the faint fuzzies in Cassiopeia. I found NGC 637 but nothing else.

Mobile Observatory graphic
I tried for the Andromeda Galazy but am not even sure I was looking in Andromeda. The sky seemed very mirky and everything was feeling clammy at that point.

I moved over by the benches near TotL_E for a flare from MetOp B. While waiting for the flare I made some pictures of Saturn and Mars over the Bearsford but doubt that anything will come of them since the shutter speed was 1 second and I was firing the shutter manually not having the forethought to bring my intervalometer.

For MetOp B I set the elevation on the ball head's setting circle and estimated the position as well as I could based on the few stars that were visible and what Mobile Observatory was telling me. I got greedy again and zoomed all the way in and the flare appeared out of frame to upper right. It was very bright and lasted long enough for me to get it into the frame as it was fading. This is the first time that I have successfully observed a MetOp B flare.

Metop B
Bright Flare at nightFlare from fixed mounted left looking ASCAT
Magnitude=-2.5mag
Azimuth=347.6° NNW altitude= 22.9°
in constellation Ursa Major

LightTrac graphic

23 August 2014

Toonight I attended a public observing night on the Intrepid jointly sponsored by the museum and the AAA. The weather wasn't great but was forecast to improve. It did change as the night wore on but not for the better. Only six telescopes were set up. There were a couple more there that were not even unpacked. And as soon as the clouds thickened out of the NE and there were a couple of drops of rain all the tripod legs were collapsed and people ran home. I stuck it out until closing time and actually showed people stars. I found a large open cluster of 12 bright white stars surrounded by a ring of fainter red stars low on the SE horizon.

Image made from Times Square, not on the Intrepid

It was in the constellation Hard Rock Cafe. These were the only stars that were seen tonight.

I guess I am at least an honorary AAAer as I got three glow wands taped to my tripod legs just like the real members did.

I remade my pinhole of the AWACS plane but don't think I had the camera tipped up enough. And I tried one of the SR-71 Blackbird but I think that plane is too big to get it all in from where I have to make the picture even with my extreme wide angle "lens."

19 August 2014

I went up to TotL tonight fr three satellite events that I did not think I would see from Times Square.

At 2047 there was a mag -8.5 (per ISS Detector/Heavens Above, -7.2 per CalSky) flare from Iridium 15 right next to Saif in Cygnus. I can't estimate magnitudes and would not have any frame of reference for something that bright so no matter which magnitude it actually was it was very bright. It flared right about where it was supposed to. I had a false sighting of its approach when cloud movement made it look like Deneb was in motion.

CalSky graphic

At 2106 there was a mag -1.1 (per ISS Detector/Heavens Above) ISS visible pass. It went right past Polaris. My estimate of where it would start was off so so was when it would go into the shadow, and it didn't get as high as I thought it would. But we say it all the way across the sky in spite of clouds of varying densities.

Heavens Above graphic

CalSky had an experimental listing for a MetOp B flare for 2202 at mag -2.6. It was only supposed to be at altitude 20.5° which may be why I didn't see it. That is right around the local horizon and where the atmosphere is the densest. But at -2.6 I would think it would have shown through the clouds. I have tried to observe this satellite on several previous occasions based on the CalSky predictions and have never had success.

CalSky graphic

18 August 2014

I had to go to the library tonight so headed out a little early to catch a bright Iridium flare.

There is a big disparity between the magnitude estimates listed in ISS Finder on my smartphone, which scrapes the date from Heavens Above, and what I find on CalSky. For tonight's event ISS Finder had it listed at mag -7.2 while CalSky said it would be mag -5.9. Either way it was plenty bright. I like using CalSky because it provides information that ISS Finder/Heavens Above does not provide, like the constellation the event will occur in, what surface(s) the flare will originate from and a starfield map so you know exactly where to look of the light pollution isn't too bad to obliterate any nearby stars.

Tonight I sat in Grace Plaza and was able to find Vega nearly oberheat in early twilight. As the sky darkened Deneb(mag 1.2), Sadr (mag 2.2), Gienah (mag 2.5) and δ Cyg (mag 2.8) became visible but I never did see Alberio (mag 3.0) for sure. It seemed to me that the satellite crossed the neck of the swan between η Cyg and Alberio rather than between Sadr and and η Cyg as the star chart indicates. The brightest part of the flare was probably when the satellite appeared to be between Alberio and the fletchings of Sagita, probably about even with the Coathanger.

CalSky graphic

18 August 2018

I went out early this morning to Cars Schurz Park to observe the Venus/Jupiter Conjunction. I took all the toys with me so divided my time between observing and photographing. Since there wasn't that much to see after you see the planets, photography probably got the lion's share of my time.

I got there a little earlier than when my planetarium program told me I should and at some point looked up and there were two points of bright light above the Tri-Borough Bridge around where the planets were supposed to be, but the flight path for LaGuardia airport goes around there and I thought they might be early morning flights on final approach. I couldn't see any navigation ligihts on either of them when viewing them in the binocular so convinced myself that it might be the planets and when I got them in the telescope Venus was so bright and blown out it was't worth looking at but Jupiter was obviously round and not a point source of light. I continued to observe them as they and the Sun rose until Jupiter had faded from view.

I made some photographs of the waning gibbous Moon and looked at it briefly in the telescope to see if the Black Cat in the Moon was still there and he was not.

I had mixed results with the photography. I had my Vivitar Series 1 3x telephoto converter to use with the Canon G1 X camera. It worked some and didn't work some. I started out making RAW images at wide angle and then maximum zoom. Then I put the converter on the camera and made an image at that magnification then reset the camera to JPEG and increased magnification to 16x digital zoom. Everything I had learned was that you never want to use digital zoom but when researching these types of lenses (although the reviews I found were for a lens that was over an order of magnitude more expensive than my lens) I found results that showed that digital zoom results were actually better than optical zoom results, with or with out the conversion lens. My results did not agree. I found that with or without the conversion lens, my pictures were better if I manual focused at slightly less than infinity. The conversion lens creates barrel vignetting at all but nearly maximum digital zoom and better which is OK when all you are looking at is two small planets or stars in the center of the FoV and can crop out everything around them. There is chromatic aberration in the lens which reviewers have noted. And I could not get a crisp image at maximum zoom. I also found that after I removed the conversion lens from the camera, the camera would not focus until it had been turned off and back on. The lens barrel on the G1 X is plastic and in two sections and I noted when I was doing birding that adding the conversion lens creates constant flex in the primary camera lens even when they are both cradled in the palm of my hand. The conversion lens is heavy and must be lulling the primary lens down which may be why I am having trouble focusing as well.

I also had the digiscope adapter to attach the camera to the telescope. I figured that since the planets would be taking up so little of the FoV the final image would probably be cropped and the shadow of the central obstruction wouldn't be as visible as it was in the Sun and Moon images I had previously attempted. But I have forgotten how to use that adapter and when I got it all assembled and attached to the telescope I found that my camera lens ran into the back of the eyepiece every time I turned the camera on. No damage was done anywhere. I had had this problem before and don't remember how I had resolved it.

Image #	4826
Time	051011
Format	RAW
ISO	400
Shutter	1"
Aperature	5.8
Focal Length	60.4mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length	60.4mm

Image #	4831
Time	051145
Format	JPEG
ISO	400
Shutter	0.8"
Aperature	5.8
Focal Length	60.4mm
Digital Zoom	16x
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length	241.6mm

Image #	4833
Time	051407
Format	JPEG
ISO	400
Shutter	0.8"
Aperature	5.6
Focal Length	60.4mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens	3.5x
Total Focal Length	211.4mm

Image #	4835
Time	051434
Format	JPEG
ISO	400
Shutter	0.6"
Aperature	5.8
Focal Length	60.4mm
Digital Zoom	16x
Conversion Lens	3.5x
Total Focal Length	3382.4mm

I turned the camera up to the Moon to see how it would do with the conversion lens on it. I can pick out Tycho, Copernicus, Sinus Iridum and Plato.

Image #	4843
Time	052824
Format	JPEG
ISO	100
Shutter
Aperature
Focal Length	60.4mm
Digital Zoom	?
Conversion Lens	3.5
Total Focal Length	845.6mm ?

But the focus isn't there.

Image #	4845
Time	052855
Format	JPEG
ISO	100
Shutter	1/20"
Aperature	11
Focal Length	60.4mm
Digital Zoom	16x
Conversion Lens	3.5x
Total Focal Length	3382.4mm

A 1:1 crop of image 4845

The planets were still hanging on as the Sun began to rise. I didn't notice whatever it was that made the broken diagonal streak left of center. I suspect that it was a meteor since I have never seen a plane flying at that steep an inclination and it was still too early for departures from LGA.

Image #	4848
Time	053218
Format	JPEG
ISO	400
Shutter	1/5"
Aperature	2.8
Focal Length	15.1mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length	15.1mm

Image #	484850
Time	053241
Format	JPEG
ISO	400
Shutter	.05"
Aperature	5.8
Focal Length	60.4mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens	3.5
Total Focal Length	211.4mm

The planets don't look too bad with the Vivitar Series 1 High Definition 3.5x Super Telephoto Lens while the camera lens is set to maximum optical zoom.

Image #	4852
Time	053317
Format	JPEG
ISO	400
Shutter	0.5"
Aperature	5.8
Focal Length	60.4mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens	3.5x
Total Focal Length	211.4mm

But when you crank in the digital zoom to maximum, which is where this lens is intended to be used, there is a lot of chromatic aberration. The lens is heavy and it feels like it is pulling the camera's lens out of alignment which is probably contributing to the planets not looking round and things not being in sharp focus.

Image #	4854
Time	053350
Format	JPEG
ISO	400
Shutter	0.5"
Aperature	5.8
Focal Length	60.4mm
Digital Zoom	16x
Conversion Lens	3.5x
Total Focal Length	3382.4mm

Image #	4862
Time	054709
Format	RAW
ISO	400
Shutter	1/15"
Aperature	4.5
Focal Length	27.313mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length	27.313mm

'

Image #	4865
Time	054835
Format	RAW
ISO	400
Shutter	1/20"
Aperature	5.8
Focal Length	60.4mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length	60.4mm

Image #	4866
Time	054904
Format	RAW
ISO	400
Shutter	1/15"
Aperature	5.8
Focal Length	60.4mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens	3.5x
Total Focal Length	211.4mm

Image #	4870
Time	054957
Format	JPEG
ISO	400
Shutter	1/15"
Aperature	5.8
Focal Length	60.4mm
Digital Zoom	16x
Conversion Lens	3.5
Total Focal Length	3382.4mm

I made a series of images with the camera set in PHD mode then dialed in exposure compensation to see if I could get some detail into the Moon's illuminated surface. To get a better representation of both the sky and Moon an HDR image should probably be made.

Image #	4874
Time	060742
Format	RAW
ISO	400
Shutter	1/50"
Aperature	5.8
Focal Length	60.4mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens	3.5
Total Focal Length	211.4mm

Image #	4875
Time	060802
Format	RAW
ISO	400
Compensation	-1 stop
Shutter	1/80"
Aperature	5.8
Focal Length	60.4mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens	3.5
Total Focal Length	211.4mm

Image #	4876
Time	060850
Format	RAW
ISO	320
Compensation	-2 stops
Shutter	1/80"
Aperature	5.8
Focal Length	60.4mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens	3.5
Total Focal Length	211.4mm

As the Sun started to rise from behind the bridges I made a series of images just because you are supposed to take sunrise and sunset pictures. All of these images were made handheld.

Image #	4879
Time	061433
Format	RAW
ISO	100
Shutter	1/60"
Aperature	5.6
Focal Length	22.452mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length	22.452mm

Image #	4881
Time	061607
Format	RAW
ISO	100
Shutter	1/60"
Aperature	5.6
Focal Length	32.464mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length	32.464mm

Image #	4883
Time	061839
Format	RAW
ISO	100
Shutter	1/200"
Aperature	5.6
Focal Length	36.322mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length	36.332mm

Image #	4884
Time	062112
Format	RAW
ISO	100
Shutter	1/250"
Aperature	5.6
Focal Length	39.118mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length	39.118mm

Image #	4885
Time	062304
Format	RAW
ISO	100
Shutter	1/320
Aperature	5.6
Focal Length	24.984mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length	24.984mm

Image #	4889
Time	073638
Format	RAW
ISO	100
Shutter	1/250"
Aperature	6.3
Focal Length	15.1mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length	15.1mm

After I figured out that I wasn't going to figure out how to use my digiscope adapter I made a few images with the Series 1 converter and maximum digital zoom to see if the Sun would be big enough to see sunspots but at my losest ISO steeting, fastest shutter speed and slowest aperature there is too much light to make a picture. I want to buy a fairly dense Neutral Density filter for the camera but it will be 58mm diameter and the Series 1 takes 72mm filters. A filter dense enough to do the job would cost more than the lens itself. I could get a 50mm to 72mm step up ring and use the filter on both the camera and the conversion lens for another $10 or so but with the image quality I am getting out of this lens at maximum digital zoom and for a single use it doesn't seem like it will be worth it.

Image #	4890
Time	073742
Format	JPEG
ISO	100
Shutter	1/4000
Aperature	6.3
Focal Length	60.4mm
Digital Zoom	16x
Conversion Lens	3.5x
Total Focal Length	3382.4mm

17 August 2014

Ever since my iPad died and I lost that sun position program with trying to translate Az onto the local terrain I have been frustrated in attempts to locate exactly where I should look for a particular event. The compass programs in the phone and tablet, and likewise a real compass, have proved utterly useless as there is too much infrastructure around here for them to provide consistent or even repeatably inaccurate readings. In thinking about tomorrow morning's Venus/Jupiter conjunction I wondered if there might be a protractor program that would overlay over Google Maps to indicate over which part of the Tri-Borough Bridge I should look to find the planets although they should be bright enough to make their presence known unless it is too cloudy - a distinct possibility. Even on Android things are too sanboxed to do that but I did find the aptly named Protractor will let you measure angles on either a live camera image or a previously captured image. So now I can screen capture a Google Map and import it into the protractor program to make a measurement and save the annotated image to refer to in the field. The only down sides are that the program only works in portrait mode so the imported image is small and they put the saved image in a directory where other programs can't access it.

Mobile Observatory graphic

Mobile Observatory graphic

Mobile Observatory graphic

Google Maps graphic annotated with Protractor

15 August 2014

I am partial to creating links that open in new browser windows or tabs. But while working on another bolg I found that the technique I have always used no longer worked. I don't know if it is something with the template on that blog, something that Blogger has implemented across the board, or if the target=_blank" attribute of the a href HTML tag has been disabled in HTML5. I have found the preferred way to use this unpreferred way of doing things for that blog and am assuming that it will work here as well. But there are too many links that would need to be edited in old posts so they may be broken or not work as intended.

14 August 2014

I received this graphic in the email today. It is self explanatory.

12 August 2014

So tonight I was on the Google search page and they had a Google Doodle there celebrating the peak of activity tonight of the Perseid meteor shower, which is rained out around here. So that got me thinking that there were probably some more interesting, and by that I mean quality rather than quantity since I find the audio on this Doodle to by annoying, astronomy-related Doodles out there so I decided to search for them. The first one that came up in a Google search was one for the meteorite that recently caused damage in Russia. Apparently the meteor is approaching the Google and the second G gets out of the way to let it pass. But it was quickly removed after the reports came in of injuries in the area around where it hit. So I wasn't able to get that one. But I did find a age with all of the previous Doodles on it and copied all of the ones I thought might be related. Unfortunately Google doesn't provide any background information on the doodles on that page so I am going to have to search Wikipedia to get some basic information on some of these people and events. S this is a project that will have to be back-filled over time. I am listing the doodles by day of the year rather than in chronological or reverse chronological order.

	Date Posted	Commemorates
	4Jan2010	367th anniversary of Sir Isaac Newton's birth
	15Jan2004	Spirit Lands on Mars
	21Jan2004	Lunar New Year 2004 - Korea
	24Jan2001	Lunar New Year 2001 - China
	31Jan2003 31Jan2006	Lunar New Year 2003 - Korean Lunar New Year 2006
	6Feb2008	Lunar New Year 2008 - China Lunar New Year 2008 - Korea
	8Feb2011	Anniversary of Jules Verne's birth
	9Feb2011	Lunar New Year 2011 - China Lunar New Year 2011 - Korea
	10Feb13	Chinese New Year 2013 Lunar New Year 2013 - Korea Lunar New Year 2013 - VietNam
	14Feb2010	Lunar New Year 2010
	18Feb2013	812th anniversary of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi's Birth
	19Feb2013	540th anniversary of Nicolaus Copernicus' Birth
	22Feb2012	155th anniversary of Heinrich Rudolf Hertz's Birth
	28Feb2004	Leap Day 2004
	11Mar2013	61st anniversary of Douglas Adams' Birth
	13Mar2005	151st anniversary of Percival Lowell's birth
	14Mar2014	Pi Day
	29Mar2005	152nd anniversary of Vincent van Gogh's birth
	1Apr2012	13th Anniversary of the 4-unit VLT telescope - Antu, Kueyen, Melipal and Yepun
	6Apr2008	5th birthday of Astro Boy 80th anniversary of Osamu Tezuka
	11Apr2013	Yuri Gagarin's Birthday
	12Apr2011	50th anniversary of the First Man in Space
	14Apr2005	553rd anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci's birth
	16Apr2008	50th anniversary of the Atomium
	24Apr2010	Hubble Space Telescope's 20th anniversary
	1May2000 2May2000 3May2000 4May2000 5May2000	Google Aliens - 1-5
	13May2003	124th anniversary of Albert Einstein's birth
	15May2011	120th anniversary of Mikhail Bulgakov's birth
	16May2008	Invention of the first LASER
	20May2011	User submitted Doodle
	21May2012	Japanese Annular Eclipse
	23May2008	100th anniversary of the birth of Hélène Boucher
	26May2008	Parametron Compute
	4Jun2008	First Hot Air Balloon Flight
	7Jun2004	Transit of Venus 2004
	9Jun2012	200th anniversary of Johann Gottfried Galle's Birth
	13Jun2010	Asteroid Explorer Hayabusa Returns
	15Jun2011	Total Lunar Eclipse
	20Jun	Ilan Ramon's 60th Birthday
	21June2012	115th anniversary of Yuri Kondratyuk's birth
	22Jun2010	100th anniversary of Konrad Zuse's Birth
	23Jun2012	100th anniversary of Alan Turing'sBirth
	10Jul2009	Anniversary of Nikola Tesla's Birth
	2Jul2011	137th anniversary of Pedro Paulet's Birth
	7Jul????	Tanabata
	8Jul2013	Roswell's 66th anniversary
	9Jul2014	World Cup 2014 #59
	12July20__	115th anniversary of Amelia Earhart's Birth
	20Jul2005 20Jul2009	Anniversary of Lunar Landing 40thAnniversary of Lunar Landing
	23Jul2009	Eclipse 2009
	29Jul2008	50th anniversary of NASA
	1Aug2013	195th anniversary of Maria Mitchell's Birth
	2Aug????	Qixi Festival-Chilseok
	9Aug2013	100th anniversary of Wilbur Norman Christiansen's birth
	12Aug2014 12Aug2009	Perseid Meteor /shower 2009 Perseids 2014
	13Aug2014	th anniversary of the birth of Angstrom
	17Aug11	410th anniversary of Pierre de Fermat's birth
	19Aug2010	Anniversary of Belka and Strelka space flight
	23Aug11	Anniversary of Nazik Al Malaika's birth
	25Aug2009	400th Anniversary of Galileo's Telescope
	4Sep2012	Anniversary of Al-Biruni's Birth
	10Sep2008	Large Hadron Collider
	12Sep2008	Moon Festival/Mid-Autumn Festival 2008
	21Sep2010	115th anniversary of Juan de la Cierva's Birth
	14Sep2008	Moon Festival/Mid-Autumn Festival 2008 - Vietnam Korean Thanksgiving 2008
	17Sep2005	Moon Festival/Mid-Autumn Festival 2005
	18Sep2013	194th anniversary of Léon Foucault's Birth
	19Sep2013	Mid Autumn Festival 2013
	21Sep2006	Rosh Hashanah 2006
	22Sep2010	Moon Festival/Mid-Autumn Festival 2010
	25Sep2007	Moon Festival - Mid-Autumn Festival 2007
	25Sep2011	130th anniversary of Lu Xun's Birth
	30Sep2012	Moon Festival/Mid-Autumn Festival 2012
	4Oct2004	Lunar X Prize
	6Oct2006	Moon Festival/Mid-Autumn Festival 2006
	7Oct2012	127th anniversary of Niels Bohr's birth
	30Oct07	Sputnik - 50th anniversary
	31Oct2011	Parkes Observatory's 50th Anniversary In the Australian out back, this is one of the tracking stations for the Apollo Moon missions and is featured in the movie The Dish
	8Nov2010	Discovery of X-rays 355th anniversary of Edmond Halley's birth
	12Nov2013	Anniversary of the 1st use of the Canadarm in space
	12Nov2013	Discovery of water on the Moon
	18Nov2011	224th anniversary of Louis Daguerre's birth Including this is a bit oof a reach but I am getting into analogue photography again. And if we didn't have photography we wouldn't have pictures of men on the Moon.
	19Nov2011	224th anniversary of Louis Daguerre's birth
	11Dec2009	Qian Xuesen's Birthday
	13Dec2013	146th anniversary of Kristian Birkeland's birth
	14Dec2013	467th anniversary of Tycho Brahe's birth
	16Dec2003	100th Anniversary of Flight
	17Dec2009	Discovery of the Aztec Sun Stone
	21Dec2012	End of the Mayan calendar
	22Dec2012	120th anniversary of Herman Potočnik's birth
	27Dec2013	442nd Johannes Kepler's birth