matty

Very nice ship Tattosh - spent about 6 months on the build in Rendsburg on this one - installed getting on for 6 x 19" racks of satellite & A/V distribution - sort of (quality & expensive) kit you would have seen in a leading Cable TV distribution network at the time.

Sailed through the Kiel Canal a couple of times, then did sea trials in the North Sea - moored later at Cuxhaven.

Not quite 'astronomy', but certainly space related.

There are a couple of arranged school contacts to the International Space Station (ISS) this week.

Tuesday 1st Feb, morning at 7am, with a school in France- Joseph Chassigneux, located in Vinay, south-east of France, between Grenoble and Valence, and also Wednesday morning (2nd Feb) at 7.30am, with Buehl-Realschule, Dornstadt, Germany.

Anyone with a handheld scanner should be able to pick these up (outdoors if using the 'rubber duck' antenna) - on 145.800mhz, FM.

Space station & moon, solar eclipse

Image in link above is from the partial solar eclipse a few days back, can see the International Space Station silhouted in the solar disc.

Freight charges are going to go up, but not yet. The rates have been reduced for favoured customers who have not changed to the Mezeron service. It is to give others the opportunity to poach Graylew’s customers with some success

 

That makes perfect sense. But the price rises are restricted by the UA of course.

 

Now assuming enough Graylaw's business is lost the Mezeron operation will presumably run out of steam (sorry, couldn't resist) and they'll pack it in at the current level.

 

Now these "favoured customers", do any of them really think that on the demise of Mezeron's twice-daily sailings the SP won't then hike their prices back up?

 

Mezeron only sail once a day, get your facts right !

Energy - says twice a day!

Satellite Database

If you open the above link in Google Earth, it shows the catalogued satellites (& earth orbiting 'space junk')- I was quite surprised by the amount of stuff up there!

'Space Weather'

Amateur Radio Related site I use quite often - quite handy to know when astronauts are active using the kit onboard:-

'ISS Fanclub'

I've spoken to three astronauts sofar and regularly use the packet radio when it is active.

I found this story quite interesting.

Here's a link on US bloke using the US militarys own 'Fence' radar to track satellites - this is a good few years old now though.

With some of the more recent radio receiving technology - especially SDR (one of our very own forum members writes this kind of software), it would be relatively easy to track almost any object in orbit !!

'bloke down the pub' said looks like there was some serious scrapping going on in that part of town this evening - road closed off.

Sounds pretty serious!

Britain

Neocon Iranian Mortar Ruse Fizzles

 

http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=764

 

A must read!

Interesting link!!!

America Today blaming Iran for supplying weapons that led to the deaths of 170 US troops - what about the other 2800 or so of dead US troops - who or what killed them???

I think allrightyessa's post was pointing to the idea of the Iranian's 'Oil Bourse' in Euros - this could be seen as a 'swipe' against the US - indeedy!

I do believe this is what has caused the pissy pants attitude towards them from the US, if the rest of the world started using Euros or another currency for oil trade, instead of the dollar, the US would sink overnight (probably not without a huge shitfight from the US before though).

Interesting article I found on the Beeb Radio4 site ealier regarding the alleged intervention of Iran in the troubles in Iraq:- here!

Spiders on drugs???

"Balance"

Might be on Youtube, but found it at the above link...

Clicky

I'm afraid the above link isn't on Youtube, but I think it should be!

Mod Note: Not Safe For Work

Thanks Albert, enjoyed the Spitting Image clips.

 

As for the intros, I had a LP when I was about 12 or 13 of TV intro music (yes, they used to sell them in those days, together with Top of the Pops LPs with session players covering top ten numbers!) and quite a few listed were on that LP!

Have a nose through the record collection at Jurby Junk!!

Might find something up there