The Microtransit Challenge.

This is a testament to Moore's law.

Ten years ago this was 100% science fiction.  Five years ago someone could talk about it.  2006 they held it on a lake.

This year its across the Atlantic.

...and it's at hobby prices.

One of the entrants, the Pinta, cost the competitors £2,500.  Umm...you could build it in your garage if you had the programming chops.

Big deal you say, it's just a glorified model sailboat.  Well yes and no.  Yes they look like simple little sailboats but they've got: Solar power, automated sensors, GPS positioning and course navigation software.  They obviously have a much simpler algorithm than the DARPA Grand Challenge cars, but still need to get from point A to point B.

Also this technology will be a boon to climate science.  At £2,500 a pop you can make hundreds and send them out into the oceans and go anywhere and report back anything you can imagine.  A mobile science buoy.

News Article: Pinta the robot sailing boat takes on Atlantic challenge

Go Download It!

Just so you know, you need a beefy machine.

But OMG is it cool.  I'll play with it over the next day or two and let you all know what I think.  But here are some brief observations.

1. it's REAL time.  The planets move.

2. It's very very smooth.

3. The UI is incredibly intuitive. 

Here is a little guided tour for you of a simple zoom in to Saturn.  We start out fully zoomed out and looking at the constellation Leo in the center.

In we go, we see Regulus come into focus, one of the key stars of Leo.  37 Leonis is the second brightest in the middle top third of the picture.

Further in still too close now and Regulus has moved off the screen.  37 Leonis is just out of the picture above the center.

And now you can make out Saturn finally.

And there she is.

This little experience in and of itself was enjoyable.  This makes me want to go out and buy a machine for this software only.

This is a compelling reason to upgrade your system.

Like a grandfather clock.  This is brilliant, but not produced yet.

To "turn on" the lamp, the user moves weights from the bottom to the top of the lamp. An hour-glass like mechanism is turned over and the weights are placed in the mass sled near the top of the lamp. The sled begins its gently glide back down and, within a few seconds, the LEDs come on and light the lamp,

That is very cool.

The LED lightbulb should last a lifetime so you are looking at a family heirloom.  Kind of a 21st century candle. 

SEE not infer.

The technology does not use glass lenses nor reflective mirrors but an advanced form of a pinhole camera, the "pinhole" technique is called Fresnel zone plates.

New Scientist article.

The technical hurdles would be tricky but nothing unbelievable.

Essentially we would need to launch two spacecraft.: one is the "lens" and one is the "receptor".  The focal point using the Fresnel method is kilometers away from the lense, ergo the two spacecraft solution.

Go read the whole article, just fascinating.

Feeds right into this post: Planet Hunting, The Next Generation - The Lyot Project

Just type in a zip code number by number and watch it drive down to the specific location on the map. [linky]

Example: 90210

That's German for "counter glow".

On the darkest nights, 180 degrees around from the sun there is a reflection of light from the sun called the Gegenschein.  This is a reflection of light off of dust particles in the asteroid belt. 

Check it out. 

The black part in the middle of the picture is the Pipe Nebula.  It is not a dark window into the background, but a foreground BLACK cloud of dust.

Info here: panther observatory

heh.

eh...not sure if this is off-topic or not.  I guess I'll categorize it that way.  Really funny.