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Welcome to HobbySpace. the site that will prove to you that everyone can participate in space exploration and development in one way or another.
April 2013
Space for All Blog NewSpace Watch Blog
Space Hobbies & Activities in the Spotlight

Join Space Warps to Search for Gravitational Lenses

The Zooniverse citizen science organization has opened a new project titled Space Warps.

Gravitational lenses – or ‘space warps’ – are created when massive galaxies cause light to bend around them such that they act rather like giant lenses in space. By looking through data that has never been seen by human eyes, our new Space Warps project is asking citizen scientists to help discover some of these incredibly rare objects. We need your help to spot these chance-alignments of galaxies in a huge survey of the night sky. To take part visit www.spacewarps.org.

Gravitational lenses help us to answer all kinds of questions about galaxies, including how many very low mass stars such as brown dwarfs – which aren’t bright enough to detect directly in many observations – are lurking in distant galaxies. The Zooniverse has always been about connecting people with the biggest questions and now, with Space Warps, we’re taking our first trip to the early Universe. We’re excited to let people be the first to see some of the rarest astronomical objects of all!

Find more about the project at New Project: Join the Search for ‘Space Warps’ - Zooniverse.



Operation Moonwatch - Early Citizen Science

At the start of the Space Age in the 1950s, a program was formed to organize amateur astronomers in the US to tracka nd monitor satellites.

Read about it at Operation Moonwatch – volunteers monitored early satellites.

Space Art Spotlight

Private Moon in New Zealand near Rangitito-  Bryan Versteeg
Private Moon in New Zealand near Rangitito, 2010

Who washed ashore? Sizihwan - Leonid Tishkov
Who washed ashore? Sizihwan

The Man and the Moon in Taiwan -  Leonid  Tiskhov
The Man and the Moon. Taiwan

The Boy and the Moon. Xsiaolin -   Leonid  Tiskhov
The Boy and the Moon. Xsiaolin
Moon World. Tianliao -  Leonid Tishkov
Moon World. Tianliao



Leonid Tishkov
See also Private Moon and
Huffington Post interiew/gallery
More space art...

Space News from Virtual Amanda Bush

The Virtual SpaceTV 3D show, with Amanda Bush and James C. Birk has been on an hiatus for what we hope will be a short break. Here is a brief update from Amanda:

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Other Virtual SpaceTV 3D shows are available on the HobbySpace Youtube Channel.

The Virtual SpaceTV 3D shows are created by BINARY SPACE (www.binary-space.com) with story content from HobbySpace.com. These videos are intended as demonstrations of an experimental technique for generating animated presentations. The show was generated autonomously by software according to a text script. The project is described in the Virtual Producer whitepaper (pdf). For further information contact info@binary-space.com.


Here are the preceding two shows in the Virtual SpaceTV 3D series:

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Virtual SpaceTV 3D - February 2013
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Virtual SpaceTV 3D - January 2013
Space Music Video of the Month

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Jupiter
This is the Jupiter entry in the Planetarium song cycle
created by Sufian Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly.
Previous space music in spotlight

It's a Whole New Outer Space Out There

SpaceX Grasshopper Keeps Jumping Higher

As mentioned in the January NewSpace Spotlight, the company SpaceX is developing a fully and rapidly reusable launch vehicle based on its Falcon 9 rocket. If successful, such a reusable system would drastically lower the cost of getting to orbit.

Last fall they began testing a prototype first stage reusable booster called Grasshopper. It takes off and lands vertically. In the past few months the 10 story-tall Grasshopper has made brief hover flights. Here are two videos of a flight on March 7th when it reached 80.1 meters (262.8 feet) and stayed in the air for about 34 seconds.

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Here is a fixed angle view:

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They aim to increase the altitude and speed with each flight until they demonstrate the capability to reach the staging altitude and velocity needed to release the upper stage and return to the launch pad.

They will also work backwards from real launches to test recovery of the first stage. During a press briefing after the recent successful Dragon cargo delivery mission to the International Space Station, Elon Musk stated that in a satellite launch this summer with the new Falcon 9 v1.1, the first stage booster after separation will do a burn to slow itself down and then a second burn just before it reaches the water.

In subsequent flights they will continue these over-water tests. He repeatedly emphasized that he expects several failures before they learn how to do it right. If all goes well with the over-water tests, they will fly back to the launch site and land propulsively. He expects this could happen by mid-2014.

Since they don't know how many tests they will need, they don't know exactly which flight this would be. This is a very accelerated schedule from what most people expected. If they succeed at flying back and landing the first stage, that would be a real revolution in space transport.

The goal is eventually for both the first and second stages and the Dragon to return to the pad where they will be reattached and flown again within a short time. Here is an animation of such a system:

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Check for the latest in leading edge rocket and space travel projects on the
Space Transport News Blog
Satellite Tracking at HobbySpace

Tutorial videos
Satellite tracks
Satellite track display

3-D viewing option
Run the Satellite Tracking Tool from BINARY SPACE right here at HobbySpace in your browser. The program allows you to track a large set of satellites in both low earth and geostationary orbits. (Note: the program requires Microsoft Silverlight, Version 5 or higher, as well as the latest version of your browser. Currently the program works on the Microsoft® Windows® platform only.) The Satellite Observing section provides additional information and web resources about the hobby of satellite tracking and watching.
Real-Time Space Viewers
Earth Viewer
Earth
Weather maps, remote sensing
and spysat images.
Space Weather Viewer
Space Weather
Sun, solar wind, aurora images
and the latest data

Space Explorer Viewer
Space Explorers
Images and data from
deep space probes.

See the archive of previous HobbySpace homepage Spotlight items ...
March 13 - May/June 13

HobbySpace has been providing thousands of space links, news and information daily since

January 1999.

The Art of C. Sergent Lindsey

 

 
 
 
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