Not for profit website/blog on astronomy, space and my writing
A fascinating day here at oggcamp.org in Liverpool.
Some of you asked for copies of the slides – now on here on slideshare.
More about The British Interplanetary Society, Manchester and Liverpool’s role in the space race – here.
Located about 80km from Chennai on India’s east coast, Satish Dhawan Space centre is used by ISRO to launch all of its satellites including those to the Moon and Mars. Also known as Sriharikota, it was established during the late 1960s but today it has a vehicle assembly building, two launch pads and a state of the art mission control centre.
In this episode, Dr MYS Prasad, the director at Satish Dhawan Space Centre describes the key services and activities that take place at India’s 21st century rocket launch complex. This interview was recorded in January 2014 and Dr Prasad stood down as director on 31st May 2015.
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The Indian Space Program was initiated by a brilliant nuclear physicist Homi Bhabha who pretty much immediately handed over the space program to Vikram Sarabhai. Bhabha himself pursued the goal of establishing premier scientific institutions for fundamental research in India. At the time he regarded scientific institutions to be critical for the new emerging independent India. Whilst working in the Indian Institute of Science, in 1945 he came up with the idea of an institution for fundamental research and went on to establish the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research (TIFR) which continues to operate today.
Although separate organisations, the connection between ISRO and TIFR remains strong to this day. Many of the instruments and subsystem onboard ISRO’s satellites are designed and constructed within TIFR. In this episode, the former director of TIFR, Professor Mustansir Barma talks about Homi Bhabha, his achievements in physics and the role of the TIFR in modern India.
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Some images and short videos of the eclipse recorded from northwest England during a mostly cloudy morning of 20th March 2015. I used a video camera piggy-backed on my driven Vixen 102mm telescope along with a Cannon 550D at the prime focus for a few stills. A mylar filter was used most of the time on both the scope and video camera but occasionally removed because the attenuation provided by the clouds was sufficient. Although mostly cloudy throughout the eclipse there were several intervals when the sun was not completely obscured and is when these recordings were made.
The video was shot using a Panasonic HDC HS900 camera and the first 4 still images are from that camera too. Click on any image to open gallery view.
Partial Solar Eclipse 20 Mar 2015 – still images from video using Panasonic HDC HS900
If you are intrigued by the birds in the images above. Here are the video clips from which they came at one tenth normal speed.
Partial Solar Eclipse 20 March 2015 – Vixen 102mm and a Cannon 550D at prime focus.
This 3 minute video is a collection of intervals when cloud cover did not completely obscure the sun during the couple of hours of the solar eclipse. It has been speeded up twenty times normal speed.