I wonder what makes us do things? You know, you set out to do one thing; and that leads to another; and that leads to another
I can’t even remember how I ended up standing in the freezing cold, at night, camera at the ready waiting for the International Space Station to fly past but the other night that’s exactly what I was doing.
I’ve never tried taking pictures of satellites/Space Stations before so it was a whole new learning experience and to be honest I didn’t get any good results; and to top things off, having waited for over an hour since the previous pass of the ISS (which was seen, nice and bright whilst it travelled over Southern France – not bad from Maidens), a big band of cloud appeared from nowhere and hid it from view. Never mind, it’s here all week – although I am in Scotland and so is the cloud
My investigation of tracking the ISS has led me down various routes of looking for satellites; and has made me think about getting software that will let me convert the signals from the NOAA weather satellites into images on my computer. Of course, with the computer I use starting to get maxed out with SBS, Planeplotter etc I’ll probably need a new computer. Maybe I’ll use my laptop that just sits around doing nothing these days, or revive the old computer that’s in a box in the loft. It’s also made me think about getting a few more scanners/receivers to listen to some other things and download data – I think I’m getting old 🙂 I mean it was a saturday night, I should’ve been out not standing in the garden looking at the sky
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| Satellite passing through Sagittarius |
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| Jupiter, with one of the moons passing in front of it |
I’ve been listening to a bit of HF recently too; mainly Shanwick, but there has been a bit of activity with B1’s and some Quids over the Atlantic. I missed a couple of B52’s getting refuelled last night but there were other things to do as usual – and as always it was the house.
Probably the biggest decision I’ve made this week is to purchase a HD Camcorder. Hopefully it’s on its way as I type. I’ve gone for a Panasonic HDC-TM700. It’s had great reviews and I think it’ll be exactly what I’ve been looking for. I’ve been very happy with my Panasonic point and shoot camera and this is a major step up. I’m sure some videos will be finding their way online soon
planesandstuff 