Uranus and Neptune will be in excellent positions to spot them in the night sky this autumn.
Credit: Starry Night
Midautumn places the two outermost planets in excellent position for viewing.
We often speak of the five “naked-eye” planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn), but in actuality, there is a sixth that can be glimpsed with the unaided eye if you know precisely where to look — and another that can be seen when you use a good pair of binoculars. Uranus can also be seen by a sharp-eyed observer who knows where to look for it; Neptune is the only planet that requires optical aid in order to be seen.
Both planets were discovered after the invention of the telescope. Uranus was discovered more or less by accident in 1781. Uranus’ failure to follow its predicted orbit seemed to be due to the gravitational pull of a planet farther out in space. Two astronomers independently calculated the position of the undiscovered planet, and when telescopes were turned to this region in 1846, Neptune was found. [Stargazing Maps: Best Night Sky Events of October 2017]
So, while our evening sky will soon be devoid of bright planets (Saturn will depart the scene by early December), Uranus and Neptune will be in excellent positions to be seen.
Of course, the trick is that you’ll have to know exactly where to look!
Uranus, the green planet
Barely visible to the unaided eye on very dark, clear nights, the planet Uranus — currently shining at magnitude 5.7 — is now visible during the evening hours among the stars of the constellation Pisces, the fishes. Pisces is shaped like two fishing lines tied together in a knot, with one fish dangling from each line; it resembles the shape of the letter V, tilted on its side. The star that marks the knot is known as Al Risha, a fourth-magnitude star. Above Al Risha is a star of similar brightness, known as Omicron Piscium.
The next step is to carefully study a star chart, then scan that region with binoculars. Uranus should be evident, set off by its greenish tint. Uranus just passed its opposition to the sun (on Oct. 19) and is currently visible in the sky all through the night. Right now, it appears at its highest at around midnight local daylight time, when it will stand roughly 60 degrees above the southern horizon; roughly two-thirds up from the horizon to the point directly overhead (the zenith).
Using a magnification of 150x with a telescope of at least three-inch aperture, you just might be able to resolve Uranus into a tiny, pale-green, featureless disk. While observing Uranus from the Susan F. Rose Observatory at the Custer Institute in Southold on Oct. 21, New York amateur astronomer Bart Fried wrote to New York’s Amateur Observers’ Society (NYAOS): “[At] 180-power for Uranus … that’s a speck!” Unless the seeing, or blurring and twinkling caused by Earth’s atmosphere is “total chaos,” Fried suggested trying a 300x telescope, “and next time, it will actually look like a planet. And maybe with [a larger aperture], some mottling or cloud feature will be visible.”
Indeed, larger instruments will better resolve this planet’s verdant disk.
Uranus Quiz: How Well Do You Know the Tilted Planet? Neptune Quiz: How Well Do You Know the Other Blue Planet?
The butt of solar system jokes, Uranus is also a spectacular blue planet still hiding many scientific secrets. See how much you know:
Uranus currently is 1.85 billion miles (2.97 billion kilometers) from the sun and 1.76 billion miles (2.83 billion km) from Earth. It has a diameter of 31,518 miles (50,712 km), and according to flyby magnetic data from Voyager 2 in January 1986, it has a rotation period of 17.4 hours.
At last count, Uranus has 27 moons. They are all in orbits that lie in the planet’s equator, in which there is also a complex of nine narrow, nearly opaque rings, which were discovered in 1978. Uranus likely has a rocky core surrounded by a liquid mantle of water, methane and ammonia, encased in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium.
A bizarre feature is how far over Uranus is tipped. Its north pole lies 98 degrees from being directly up and down to its orbit plane. Thus, its seasons are extreme: When the sun rises at its north pole, it stays up for 42 Earth years; then it sets, and the North Pole is in darkness for 42 Earth years.
Neptune, the blue planet
Neptune, on the other hand, is much too faint to be perceived with the unaided eye. With Pluto’s demotion to dwarf planet status in 2006, Neptune is now recognized as the most distant planet in the solar system. Currently, it lies at a distance of 2.78 billion miles (4.48 billion km) from the sun and 2.73 billion miles (4.39 billion km) from Earth.
It is slightly smaller than Uranus, with a diameter of 30,598 miles (49,232 km). Currently at magnitude 7.8, it’s more than six times dimmer than Uranus. At this moment in time, Neptune can be found in the constellation of Aquarius, the Water Carrier.
You might try using the 3.7-magnitude star Lambda Aquarii to steer you toward Neptune. Currently, Neptune is only about a half-degree (about a full moon’s width) to the south of this star. Neptune should be recognizable, thanks to its bluish color. If you have access to a dark, clear sky and carefully examine a star chart of this region, you should have no trouble in finding it with a good pair of binoculars.
From Long Beach, New York, amateur astronomer Larry Gerstman wrote to NYAOS: “For the last couple of months I have been following the motion of the planet Neptune in several of my binoculars. Its motion is like watching that of an asteroid, and much of the apparent motion is really more about the motion of the Earth. I have been using mostly my 20×60 Bushnell binoculars, which I just took out of my closet after many years of non-use since I have larger pairs, but I’m rediscovering how great they are — especially with their wide apparent field of 70-degrees (which is an actual field of 3.5-degrees at 20x) and crisp sharpness in a compact size.”
Neptune is currently at its highest point in the sky at around 9 p.m. local daylight time, climbing about 40 degrees above the southern horizon; nearly halfway from the horizon to the zenith. [How to Measure Distances in the Night Sky]
With a telescope, trying to resolve Neptune into a disk will be more difficult for observers to do than it will be with Uranus. You’re going to need at least an 8-inch telescope with a magnification of no less than 200x, just to turn Neptune into a tiny blue dot of light.
Uranus Quiz: How Well Do You Know the Tilted Planet? Neptune Quiz: How Well Do You Know the Other Blue Planet?
Neptune is the most distant full-fledged planet in the solar system (though some Pluto fans would beg to differ). Test your knowledge of this strange and frigid world.
One of Neptune’s 14 moons, Triton, has a tenuous atmosphere of nitrogen, and at 1,680 miles (2,703 km) in diameter, it’s larger than Pluto. Because it is moving in a retrograde (backward) orbit, there has been some suggestion that Neptune’s strong gravitational pull may actually have captured it in the distant past. Those who have access to a large telescope of 12 inches or more might even be able to get a glimpse of Triton, very close to Neptune itself.
Voyager 2 passed Neptune in August 1989 and relayed its possession of a deep-blue atmosphere, with rapidly moving wisps of white clouds. Also evident was a Great Dark Spot, rather similar in nature to Jupiter’s famous Great Red Spot. Observations of Neptune using the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that the dark spot seen by Voyager 2 has dissipated; yet it has apparently been replaced by another. The atmosphere of Neptune is apparently chiefly composed of hydrocarbon compounds. Based on the rotation rate of its magnetic field, a rotation rate of 16.1 hours has been assigned to Neptune. Voyager 2 also revealed the existence of at least three rings around Neptune, composed of very fine particles.
Editor’s note: If you take an amazing photo of Uranus or Neptune that you’d like to share with Space.com and our news partners for a possible story or image gallery, please contact managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.
Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York’s Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, the Farmers’ Almanac and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for Fios1 News in Rye Brook, NY. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
British astronaut Tim Peake was the first to wear the union flag on a spacewalk when he ventured outside the space station in January 2015.
Credit: NASA
Tim Peake was the first British European Space Agency astronaut to visit the International Space Station, and might also be the first to call the wrong number on Christmas in space.
When he returned to Earth, he was overwhelmed with questions at his public appearances — what it’s like on board the space station, training to be an astronaut, how it felt to return. So Peake put out a call for even more questions, and spun them all into “Ask an Astronaut” (Little, Brown and Co., 2017), a new book about life in space.
Space.com: What questions did you most enjoy answering for “Ask an Astronaut”?
Peake: The chapter that I enjoyed writing the most was the spacewalk chapter. For me, the spacewalk was such an exhilarating and exciting experience, and quite an amazing thing to be outside the space station, to be working out in the vacuum of space for so long. So I thoroughly enjoyed writing and asking all of those questions. And I love trying to explain to people, as well, what it’s like to be there, the view of Planet Earth looking down from outside the space station. The whole spacewalking chapter was by far the best.
Space.com: What was the most surprising aspect of taking a spacewalk?
Peake: You’re trained in so much detail for everything you’re going to do, but nobody can actually, really say what it’s like outside the space station. I was pleasantly surprised once the airlock opened, and we got to work outside, how relaxed I was, how easy it was to work outside. But there was one moment — I had been out for probably over about an hour and a half to two hours, and I was returning to the edge of the space station with a failed component that we’d replaced. I was taking a shortcut down a small metal pole that takes you to the airlock, because I had to put this failed unit back in the airlock, and halfway across I looked down, and I was very exposed — it was as if I was hanging underneath this pole. I looked down and Australia was passing beneath me, and I had this massive rush of vertigo which really took me by surprise. I’d been out there for so long, and I hadn’t felt like that at all. I wasn’t expecting it. It actually made me smile, made me laugh, to have that feeling. NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy has told me if that happens, to wiggle your toes in your boots. By wiggling your toes, it will make your fingers slack. And they did, it worked very well, and so I carried on. [Watch British Astronaut Tim Peake Perform Dizzying Somersaults in Space]
Space.com: What’s the hardest thing to describe about space?
Peake: The hardest thing to describe is the feeling of looking back on Planet Earth. It’s very difficult to put into words what it’s like being in space. It’s a mixture of the physical feeling of being weightless and being detached, and … the emotional feeling of what you’re observing, as well, of Planet Earth. And when you put those two things together, it’s really quite an overwhelming sensation. If you imagine being outside of the space station, inside a spacesuit, you don’t feel any part of that space on you. There’s no pressure, there’s no gravity, there’s no weight on your body. When you’re completely relaxed, and just floating, you feel so remarkably detached because there’s almost no force on your body.
And then at the same time, you’re looking down on Planet Earth passing beneath you, and then you turn the other way and you’re looking up at the solar system and the universe and the vast expanse. And you put those two things together, the physical feeling and the emotional, and it’s just a really overwhelming sensation. It’s a complete change of perspective. And that’s very hard to describe to people, exactly what that feels like.
Space.com: You also tried to convey that feeling in your photo book, out earlier this year. Can you talk about how writing this book was different?
Peake: With the photobook, that became a real driving passion of mine and a hobby whilst I was up in space. And also, during the mission as well, I was amazed at the response I was getting on social media when I was posting these photos. I felt I had a responsibility to try and share the mission as much as possible; to share the views that I was seeing. That really drove me, in the early stages, that’s why I picked up the camera and started taking photos. At the beginning, it felt like a little bit of a chore, to be picking up the camera and taking photos, but when I started to see the response, and I started to see my own skills improving, my photography improving, it just became an absolute passion. I loved it.
If I got the opportunity to go into space again I know the first thing I would do would be to go to the window, take out the camera and take a photo. “Hello, Is It Planet Earth?” was really wanting to immediately share those images of Earth and space. And that is something I could do really quickly.
“Ask an Astronaut” has taken 6 months to write, and I’ve really put my heart and soul in it, and really try to go into much more detail about what living in space is like. What is it really like to be an astronaut on those long-duration missions, watching your body change, going through the training for the mission, coming back and the return to Earth, and answering all those amazing questions that people ask.
Space.com: If you headed to space again, what would be your ideal mission?
Peake: If I had my absolute wish of a second mission, it would be a mission that I think is probably coming up within the next 10 years, and that’s the return to the lunar surface. NASA in conjunction with the European Space Agency and other partners are building the Deep Space Gateway, which is going to be a new space station in cislunar orbit, and that gives the opportunity to have missions back to the lunar surface, and also it’s paving the way for the medium-term goal of getting to Mars.
Space.com: What do you expect to see changing in spaceflight in the coming years?
Peake: It’s going to be a really exciting and interesting environment. We’re already preparing for this, and … we’re looking at how [the International Space Station] is going to hand over to the commercial space sector. We’ve already got a Bigelow module attached to the International Space Station, and there are plans for a company called Axiom to put two modules onto the space station, and eventually, when the International Space Station deorbits and burns up, one, potentially two commercial space stations will be remaining. [Astronauts Enter Inflatable Space Station Module for 1st Time (Video)]
We’re going to start to see that transition, that handover if you like, to commercial transport to low-Earth orbit. I think that will really energize a new, emerging market for microgravity research in low-Earth orbit. That’s going to be fascinating to watch, as more and more of these companies realize the benefits of microgravity research. And at the same time, we’re going to be watching the national space agencies partner on these exciting missions to the moon, and for preparations to going to Mars. And also space tourism — I know that Virgin Galactic, XCOR, Sierra Nevada, they will be working away on these space tourist missions, which are all going to start happening in the next five years or so. There’s an awful lot that’s going to be happening; it’s going to be a very exciting time.
Space.com: If you can comment, which commercial spacecraft would you most like to ride on?
Peake: No, I’m not going to give you an answer on that one — but what I will say is that firstly, the Soyuz was just such an incredibly wonderful experience. It’s steeped in so much history and tradition, and it’s solid Russian engineering with this brilliant hybrid of old and new. It was an absolute pleasure to fly on the Soyuz spacecraft. From a test pilot perspective, and coming from a military test pilot background, the idea of flying on either Boeing or SpaceX’s vehicle as a new spacecraft is very exciting … either Boeing or SpaceX would be a brilliant spacecraft to fly.
Space.com: How does your test pilot background fit in with going to space?
Peake: From a test pilot perspective, I felt that I did have a huge advantage, not just in areas with direct skill transfer like the robotic arm, which is very similar to flying a helicopter, [and] communications skills, for example, which we focus a lot on during test pilot training, but also the whole space station is a cutting-edge laboratory, and every day a lot of the pieces of equipment you’re touching, a lot of the experiments you’re touching, people are asking questions back on Earth. There’re experiments that people are saying well, how is it going to work in microgravity. Just having that test pilot mindset of knowing how to conduct an evaluation, how to conduct an experiment and how to report the results clearly and concisely so that people understand how we can make things better … you’re evaluating new pieces of equipment every single day.
Space.com: I was struck by the huge amount of support you got on social media from people following your mission. Can you talk about that?
Peake: It was a huge surprise to me as well. For astronauts on board the space station, it’s wonderful to get that feedback, because it actually helps you connect back with Planet Earth. After a few months in space, you do miss your friends, you miss your family, you miss the company of other people. To actually be able to reach out to so many people on social media and share your mission, but also receive the warm feedback and the positive feedback that was coming was very important both ways — to share the mission with other people, but for me as well it was a source of connection with Planet Earth, which was wonderful.
It’s still quite surprising how isolated you are [in space]. On the space station we have limited email, we have very limited internet access, painfully slow; the only information we have sent up to us is that that’s sent up by our ground control teams, our crew support teams.
[For instance, a surprising social media moment was after] the spacewalk, although, for me, that was an absolute pivotal moment of my career, and a life-changing experience. I got back in after the spacewalk, and Tim Kopra and myself were just chatting and having a cup of tea and drying out the spacesuits and cleaning up. I went back into my crew quarter and it really hit me when I started seeing some emails, people telling me you’ve had an email from Elton John saying enjoy your stroll outside. I mean, wow! Okay. It really hit me that it wasn’t just my own personal lifelong ambition come true, but it also had a huge impact on so many other people back on Earth.
AMSAT NEWS SERVICE
ANS-302The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and infor-
mation service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite
Corporation. ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space
including reports on the activities of a worldwide group of Amateur
Radio operators who share an active interest in designing, building,
launching and communicating through analog and digital Amateur Radio
satellites.The news feed on http://www.amsat.org publishes news of Amateur
Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it.
Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to:
ans-editor at amsat.org.
In this edition:
* AMSAT-NA Announces GOLF CubeSat Program
* AMSAT-NA Board of Directors Elects Joe Spier, K6WAO, President
* Jordan’s first satellite – JY1-SAT
* APRS Satellites QIKCOM-1 Deployed
* FalconSat-3 Video w/ WiSP File Upload/Download
* Special Membership Offer for RadFxSat Launch
* Pope Asks Spacemen Life’s Big Questions In ISS Live Chat
* AMSAT-NA Board of Directors Elects Joe Spier, K6WAO, President
* ARISS News
* Satellite Shorts From All Over
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-302.01
ANS-302 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 302.01
From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD.
October 28, 2017
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-302.01
AMSAT-NA Announces GOLF CubeSat Program
At the AMSAT-NA Annual General Meeting in Reno, NV, AMSAT-NA President
Joe Spier, K6WAO, announced the next phase of AMSAT’s CubeSat program:
GOLF. GOLF, an acronym for “Greater Orbit, Larger Footprint,” is a
crucial step towards fulfilling AMSAT’s strategic goals involving high
altitude, wide access satellite missions.
As an initial step in the GOLF program, the AMSAT-NA Board of
Directors approved the submission of a NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative
proposal for the GOLF-T satellite project. The GOLF-T project will
serve as a rapidly deployable Low Earth Orbit (LEO) testbed for
technologies necessary for a successful CubeSat mission to a wide
variety of orbits, including LEO, Medium Earth Orbit (MEO),
Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO), Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO), or beyond.
AMSAT-NA Vice-President Engineering Jerry Buxton, N0JY, said “The
GOLF-T project tees off the next phase of our CubeSat program. GOLF-T
provides AMSAT hardware and knowledge for Attitude Determination and
Control (ADAC) capability and the opportunity to develop a 3U
spaceframe with deployable solar panels that can be used in LEO or HEO
missions, two of the major systems required in future GOLF and HEO
missions.”
In addition, GOLF-T provides the opportunity for rapid deployment and
on orbit testing of the AMSAT’s Advanced Satellite Communications and
Exploration of New Technology (ASCENT )program’s technology, including
radiation tolerant transponder and Integrated Housekeeping Unit (IHU)
technologies that will lead the way for low cost commercial
off-the-shelf (COTS) systems that can function in the MEO and HEO
radiation environments. GOLF-T will also provide for the development
of “Five and Dime” Field-Programmable Gate Array Software Defined
Radio (FPGA SDR) transponders for use on a variety of missions and
orbits.
[ANS thanks the AMSAT-NA Board of Directors and our Engineering Team
for the above information]
———————————————————————
AMSAT-NA Board of Directors Elects Joe Spier, K6WAO, President
At it’s annual meeting, held at the Silver Legacy Resort Hotel in
Reno, NV, the AMSAT-NA Board of Directors elected Joe Spier, K6WAO, of
Reno, NV, President, succeeding Barry Baines, WD4ASW, who has retired
after nine years of service as AMSAT’s President. Joe is a Life Member
of AMSAT-NA and has previously served as Executive Vice President and
Vice-President Educational Relations. He also has Life Memberships in
the ARRL, SARA (Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers) and the AFA (Air
Force Association). He holds an Extra Class license as well as
commercial licenses.
Immediate Past President Barry Baines, WD4ASW, said “It has been an
honor to serve as President for the past nine years and as a board
member since 1999. I’m confident that the successes of the past nine
years while serving as President will lead to new opportunities in
AMSAT’s future as Joe assumes the helm working with the new Senior
Leadership Team. I’m also thrilled that Paul Stoetzer, N8HM, and
Clayton Coleman, W5PFG, are new voting members on the Board, including
the assumption of my former slot. I’m excited that the new Board
combined with the new Senior Leadership Team will bring insight,
enthusiasm, energy and commitment to move AMSAT forward.”
Other officers elected by the Board were:
* Paul Stoetzer, N8HM, of Washington, DC, as Executive Vice President
* Jerry Buxton, N0JY, of Granbury, TX, as Vice-President Engineering
* Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA, of New Port Richey, FL, as
Vice-President Operations
* Clayton Coleman, W5PFG, of Granbury, TX, as Secretary
* Keith Baker, KB1SF/VA3KSF, of Corunna, ON, as Treasurer
* Martha Saragovitz of Silver Spring, MD, as Manager
[ANS thanks the AMSAT-NA Board of Directors for the above information]
———————————————————————
Jordan’s first satellite – JY1-SAT
During the final satellite integration training for Jordan’s first
satellite, JY1-SAT, the team was supported for the final stages of
integration by His Royal Highness Crown Prince Al Hussein bin
Abdullah II.
The spacecraft has been given to students of the Masar Initiative at
the Jordan University of Science and Technology as part of the JY1-
SAT mission support and training program under the Crown Prince
Foundation given by ISIS – Innovative Solutions In Space and AMSAT-UK
and AMSAT Netherlands.
The JY1-SAT mission was proposed by Jordanian students who
participated in the first batch of the cooperation program with NASA,
after which the interns had suggested the design and launch of the
first Jordanian satellite CubeSat.
To build up the capability to design and develop such a first
mission, the Crown Prince Foundation signed a support agreement with
ISIS – Innovative Solutions In Space and the AMSAT Radio Amateur
Societies of the UK and the Netherlands, for hardware and training
support, building on ISIS’ and AMSAT’s experience with FUNcube radio
amateur transponder missions.
As a special development for the JY1-SAT mission, AMSAT has expanded
the capabilities of the FUNcube transponder to be able to transmit
stored images reflecting the Jordanian culture and its historical
heritage, along with a voice message recorded by the Crown Prince to
be transmitted in space to receivers around the world.
The launch of the JY1-SAT, scheduled during the first half of next
year, is in memory of His Majesty the late King Hussein, the first
founder of the HAM Radio in Jordan and holder of call sign JY1.
JY1-SAT will have a linear, inverting, transponder downlinking
between 145.855 & 145.875 MHz with the uplink between 435.100 &
435.120 MHz. The telemetry downlink will be on 145.840 MHz and be
FUNcube compatible. A new Dashboard will be made available before the
launch of JY1-SAT.
QIKCOM-1 was deployed from the ISS Friday at 0915 UTC attached to
the SIMPL spacecraft. It is an APRS digipeater just like the ISS.
Whereas it also supports the same ARISS alias as the ISS digipeater,
please use the ALIAS of APRSAT on your uplinks instead of ARISS so
that you only hit QIKCOM-1 for these first few passes with your test
uplinks (once a minute).. Or you can be specific via QIKCOM-1
callsign. At 4 Watts, it will be 10 dB stronger than PSAT(84) and
about the same power level as ISS and should be easy to receive on
the 145.825 downlink.
We ask all potential IGates to check your ground stations and make
sure they are ready to IGate packets during those initial orbits from
all over the globe. If you do not have an IGate, just capture
packets and email them to qikcom1 at gmail.com until we see that
everything is making it to the APRS-IS.
Being released from ISS, QIKCOM-1 will of course have the same
Elements and tracking info as ISS until they begin to separate. This
means passes over the USA every 90 minutes beginning at 0630 EDT in
the Southeast and ending after 1440 PDT in Southern California.
As usual, QIKCOM-1 is not intended for UNATTENDED BEACONS. It is
designed for Live Operations and experiments only.
For the initial passes, do not attempt 2-way contacts. Just set
your STATUS text to indicate your TX power and antenna type and
transmit at 1m intervals ATTENDED as described on the web page
during these first few orbits. So we can get sttistices on uplink
quality.
[ANS thanks Bob, WB4APR for the above information]
———————————————————————
FalconSat-3 Video w/ WiSP File Upload/Download
If anyone would like to see how the WiSP software handles uploading &
downloading files to FalconSat-3, I made a video of the highest
elevation
pass tonight:
… I don’t understand it all yet, but am seeing some uploads &
downloads.
I keep UISS open and ready in case anyone is active w/ APRS packets,
but on this pass I didn’t transmit from UISS to give the MSPE program
from WiSP maximum time to work.
There’s a little explanation in the notes below the video on YouTube
if you click “SHOW MORE” on that page.
Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA, has scanned and posted the chapter on WISP
from Gould Smith’s 2005 Digital Satellite & Telemetry Guide to the
FalconSAT-3 page on amsat.org. He hopes it is helpful to everyone
diving back into this excellent program from the past.
[ANS thanks Scott, K4KDR and Drew KO4MA for the above information]
———————————————————————
Special Membership Offer for RadFxSat Launch
As part of the preparations for the launch of RadFxSat on November
10th, AMSAT is making our “Getting Started With Amateur Satellites”
book available for a limited time as a download with any paid new or
renewal membership purchased via the AMSAT Store. This offer is only
available with purchases completed online, and for only a limited
time. A perennial favorite, Getting Started is updated every year with
the latest amateur satellite information, and is the premier primer of
satellite operation. The 182 page book is presented in PDF format, in
full color, and covers all aspects of making your first contacts on a
ham radio satellite.
Please take advantage of this offer today by visiting the AMSAT store
at https://www.amsat.org/shop/ and selecting any membership option.
While there, check out our other items, including the M2 LEOpack
antenna system, Arrow antennas, AMSAT shirts, and other swag.
Thank you, and see you soon on RadFxSat!
[ANS thanks Paul N8HM for the above information]
———————————————————————
Pope Asks Spacemen Life’s Big Questions In ISS Live Chat
Pope Francis chatted with six astronauts at the International Space
Station (ISS) on Thursday, kicking off the rare interview with a
philosophical question on “man’s place in the universe”.
Italian Paolo Nespoli, 60, admitted that despite the bird’s eye view
of Earth he too remained “perplexed”, while American Mark Vande Hei
said seeing the planet from space made them “realise how fragile we
are”.
The Argentine pontiff sat at a Vatican desk, facing a wide-screen
television on which the astronauts from America, Russia and Italy
could be seen floating together in their blue suits.
“Good afternoon… or good evening. I imagine time passes
differently at the space station, right?” the pope quipped.
“Astronomy makes us think about the universe’s boundless horizons,
and prompts questions such as ‘where do we come from, where are we
going?'” he mused.
A 30-second delay in the satellite feed gave Nespoli, Vande Hei,
Americans Randolph (Randy) Bresnik and Joseph Acaba, and Russians
Sergej Nikolaevic Rjazanskij and Alexandr Misirkin time to weigh up
life’s biggest questions.
“Our aim here is to spread knowledge, (but) the more we learn, the
more we realise we do not know,” admitted Nespoli, who is on his
third trip into space.
“I would like people like you, theologians, philosophers, poets,
writers, to come to space to explore what it means to be a human in
space,” he said, as Francis nodded and smiled.
US mission commander Bresnik told the Argentine that from the
visible thinness of the planet’s atmosphere shows how fragile life is
on earth.
– ‘Future of humanity’ –
But the pope had not finished: what, he wanted to know, was their
opinion of love as a force that moves the universe? What was their
source of joy up in the space station, and how did a life without
gravity change their view of the world?
The crew took it in turns to get their philosophical caps on, and
not even a technical hitch which temporarily interrupted the
interview, or the lack of a Russian translator, could throw the space
travellers off course.
“I get the most joy by looking outside every day and seeing God’s
creation, maybe a little bit from his perspective,” Bresnick said.
Far from wars, famines, pollution or human folly, he said “the
future of humanity looks better from up here”.
Bresnik, 50, a former Marine Corps aviator who goes by the nickname
“Komrade”, made his fifth career excursion outside the space station
this month to carry out crucial repairs to the ISS’s robotic arm with
NASA colleague Acaba.
Acaba, 50, the first person of Puerto Rican heritage to become an
astronaut, cheerfully said hello to the pope in Spanish before
tackling the question on how the men deal with ‘up’ and ‘down’ losing
their meaning in space.
Francis is not the only Roman Catholic leader to have put in a call
to the star-covered heavens.
The first pope to get on the line to space was Benedict XVI in 2011,
who rang the ISS — which has been continuously occupied since 2000 —
when Nespoli was once again among the crew.
[ANS thanks Ella IDE via Space Daily for the above information]
———————————————————————
ARISS News
+ A Successful contact was made between Istituto Scolastico
Comprensivo “Nardi”, Porto San Giorgio, Italyand Astronaut Paolo
Nespoli IZØJPA using Callsign IRØISS. The contact began 2017-10-21
09:31 UTC and lasted about nine and a half minutes. Contact was
Direct/Telebridge via I6KZR and IQ5VR.HamTV was active.
ARISS Mentor was Francesco IKØWGF.
+ A Successful contact was made between I.C. Michelangelo
Buonarroti, Marina di Carrara, Italyand Astronaut Paolo Nespoli
IZØJPA using Callsign IRØISS. The contact began 2017-10-21 09:31 UTC
and lasted about nine and a half minutes. Contact was
Direct/Telebridge via I6KZR and IQ5VR. HamTV was active.
ARISS Mentor was Francesco IKØWGF.
+ A Successful contact was made between Istituto Comprensivo “Tauro
Viterbo”, Castellana Grotte (Ba), Italy and Astronaut Paolo Nespoli
IZØJPA using Callsign IRØISS. The contact began 2017-10-21 14:23 UTC
and lasted about nine and a half minutes. Contact was Direct via
IZ7RTN. HamTVC was active.
ARISS Mentor was Francesco IKØWGF.
Event location: Cittadella Mediterranea della Scienza, Bari, Italy
+ A Successful contact was made between “A.Gramsci-N.Pende”,
Noicattaro, Italy and Astronaut Paolo Nespoli IZØJPA using Callsign
IRØISS. The contact began 2017-10-21 14:23 UTC and lasted about nine
and a half minutes. Contact was Direct via IZ7RTN.
ARISS Mentor was Francesco IKØWGF. HamTVC was active.
Event location: Cittadella Mediterranea della Scienza, Bari, Italy
+ A Successful contact was made between Chiddix Junior High School,
Normal, IL, USA and Astronaut Joe Acaba KE5DAR using Callsign NA1SS.
The contact began 2017-10-23 15:31 UTC and lasted about nine and a
half minutes. Contact was Direct via W9AML
ARISS Mentor was Joe K6WAO.
+ A Successful contact was made between Beaconsfield State School,
Mackay, Queensland, Australia and Astronaut Paolo Nespoli IZØJPA
using Callsign IRØISS. The contact began 2017-10-26 08:23 UTC and
lasted about nine and a half minutes. Contact was Telebridge via
IK1SLD
ARISS Mentor was Shane VK4KHZ.
+ A Successful contact was made between Colegiul National Calistrat
Hogas Piatra Neamt, Piatra Neamt, Romania and Astronaut Joe Acaba
KE5DAR using Callsign OR4ISS. The contact began 2017-10-26 09:55 UTC
and lasted about nine and a half minutes. Contact was Telebridge via
EI1ISS.
ARISS Mentor was Armand SP3QFE.
+ A Successful contact was made between Glanmire Community College,
Cork, Ireland and Astronaut Joe Acaba KE5DAR using Callsign OR4ISS.
The contact began 2017-10-26 09:55 UTC and lasted about nine and a
half minutes. Contact was Direct via EI1ISS.
ARISS Mentor was Seamus EI8BP.
+ A Successful contact was made between Istituto Tecnico Tecnologico
“Enzo Ferrari”, Borgo A Mozzano, Italy and Astronaut Paolo Nespoli
IZØJPA using Callsign IRØISS. The contact began 2017-10-28 08:13:31
UTC. Contact was Direct via IQ5LU and IQ1SM.
ARISS Mentor was Francesco IKØWGF.
+ A Successful contact was made between Liceo Statale “G. D.
Cassini”, Sanremo, Italy and Astronaut Paolo Nespoli IZØJPA using
Callsign IRØISS. The contact began 2017-10-28 08:13:31 UTC. Contact
was Direct via IQ5LU and IQ1SM.
ARISS Mentor was Gianpietro IZ2GOJ.
Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule
+ Primaria e Secondaria di primo grado Istituto comprensivo Via XVI
settembre, Civitavecchia, Italy direct via IKØWGF
The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be IRØISS
The scheduled astronaut is Paolo Nespoli IZØJPA
Contact is a go for: Mon 2017-10-30 11:20:34 UTC
Watch for HamTV to be operative.
+ Asociación Civil Instituto Maria Montessori, San Cristóbel,
Venezuela, direct via YY2CMR
The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS
The scheduled astronaut is Joe Acaba KE5DAR
Contact is a go for: Tue 2017-10-31 18:23:28 UTC
+ Liceo Scientifico ‘Francesco Cecioni”, Livorno, Italy and Liceo
Artistico Melotti, Lomazzo, Italy, direct via IQ5LI.
The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be IRØISS
The scheduled astronaut is Paolo Nespoli IZØJPA
Contact is a go for: Fri 2017-11-03 09:27:26 UTC
Watch for HamTV to be operative.
+ Istituto di Istruzione Superiore “Leonardo Da Vinci”, Lanusei,
Italy, direct via ISØBWM
The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be OR4ISS
The scheduled astronaut is Paolo Nespoli IZØJPA
Contact is a go for: Sat 2017-11-04 10:12:16 UTC
Watch for HamTV to be operative.
[ANS thanks ARISS, Charlie AJ9N and David AA4KN for the above
information]
———————————————————————
Satellite Shorts From All Over
+ Daylight saving time 2017 in the United Kingdom ends at 02:00 on
Sunday, 29 October
[ANS thanks Southgate ARN for the above information.]
[ANS thanks EMike AA8EM for the above information]
+ RUSSIAN WAR GAMES SPARK ‘BLUE AURORAS’
Around the Arctic Circle, people see green auroras almost every
night. It’s nothing to write home about. Blue auroras, on the other
hand, are very unusual.
Photos and more information are highlighted on
Spaceweather.com.
[ANS thanks Spaceweather.com via Southgate ARN for the above
information
———————————————————————
/EX
In addition to regular membership, AMSAT offers membership in the
President’s Club. Members of the President’s Club, as sustaining
donors to AMSAT Project Funds, will be eligible to receive addi-
tional benefits. Application forms are available from the AMSAT
Office.
Primary and secondary school students are eligible for membership
at one-half the standard yearly rate. Post-secondary school students
enrolled in at least half time status shall be eligible for the stu-
dent rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in this status.
Contact Martha at the AMSAT Office for additional student membership
information.
