Mercy
06-08-2013, 05:25 PM
I keep late hours. Consequently, I spend a bit of time observing the heavenly bodies, watching for meteor showers and the like. I recently began following Cmdr. Chris Hadfield, Canadian astronaut, on twitter (following as in, checking up on...I do not "do" twitter) while he was aboard the International Space Station. I am not entirely on board with certain aspects of the space programme (big surprise) but Cmdr. Hadfield's communications from the ISS made it easy to forget everything except the awesomeness of the Universe. The man has charisma (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo), also. Cmdr. Hadfield, along with Tom Marshburn (USA) and Roman Romanenko (Rus), returned to Earth last month via a Russian Soyuz. That has more significance to some of us than others.
Lately I have developed a minor obsession with watching for the ISS (http://iss.astroviewer.net/observation.php). Weather permitting. The weather has been less than cooperative lately but we had perfect viewing conditions the other morning. Clear skies and a long path that lasted over five minutes. The magnitude (-3) was on par with Mars, perhaps a little brighter which made for brilliant viewing. It is worth trying to catch at least once for anyone wanting to spend a few minutes admiring what the human intellect can achieve.
Lately I have developed a minor obsession with watching for the ISS (http://iss.astroviewer.net/observation.php). Weather permitting. The weather has been less than cooperative lately but we had perfect viewing conditions the other morning. Clear skies and a long path that lasted over five minutes. The magnitude (-3) was on par with Mars, perhaps a little brighter which made for brilliant viewing. It is worth trying to catch at least once for anyone wanting to spend a few minutes admiring what the human intellect can achieve.