But…. that’s not the interesting bit.  It looks like Jonathan Koren (Robotmonkeys.net resident blogger) and I have a shared interest in Number Stations.  In fact that’s perhaps unfair on Jonathan, as he’s got far more info on them than I’ve seen in while, I’ll have to catch up on what’s happening in the murky world of global short-wave espionage.  I first read about number stations back in 2000 and thought they were the coolest thing ever.  In fact it was the seed that started me on the route to classified satellite tracking (something else I like to think I’m ‘active’ in doing, but actually just talk about a lot).  Kudos to Robotmonkeys.net for helping to keep number stations alive in the blogosphere! Yay!

Perhaps this is the source of the buzzer? (kspzel.livejournal.com via Robotmonkeys.net)

Click on the image to get the awesome full resolution version of the whole of the UK.

Last night (17th March 2009) I was able to capture a few photos of the ISS and Discovery very close to docking. The combination of circumstance that has to fall into place is stagering, firstly, there has to be a shuttle about to dock, and that doesn’t exactly happen every week. Next, the orbit of the IIS and shuttle has to be favorable so that the orbital ground track pass will near enough my house to be able to see it, this is not so tricky, pretty much anywhere over Westen Europe will do.  However, timing is critical, it must be just in that sweet spot of dusk where the sun will still reflect off the space craft, but it’s dark enough at home that you can take a fairly long exposure without it being blown out.  Finaly, it has to be clear; a cloudy night would ruin it.  As you can see below, the clouds nearly did. I’m pleased with this shot, but if you want to see a better one check out Marco Langbroek’s blog

It’s been really cloudy here, and when it is clear, it just doesn’t get dark, I guess that’s the english summer for you.  I did manage to take a couple of shots of the ISS on consecutive nights, although tonight i was really aiming for the Early Ammonia Servicer which i think I saw, but in a totally unexpected part of the sky.  I’ll get it next time…

I had the best night yet for Sat Obs last night, despite it being hazy and the ridiculous amounts of light pollution from living so close to London. I managed to score 5 naked eye sats, four of which I was able to identify, and none of which were anything obvious like the ISS. It constantly amazes me that I can get ~3.4 mag sightings out of my back garden, you should see the raw images that I get from the camera; bright orange!

Speaking of images out of the camera, I used my new remote to break through the 30sec Bulb barrier and did a few 1 Min+ exposures. For the final shot of the night I was aiming for Cosmos 2263 and opened the shutter with a 50mm lens attached, I visually picked up the satellite a few seconds later but bugger me if it wasn’t going the wrong way across the sky. Turns out that in a moment of serendipity, I had clocked Cosmos 1154 instead. Huh those crazy satellites!

The real buzz came when I found my original target Cosmos 2263 setting in the east, it’s path meant that the Camera shot that caught C.1154 probably caught C.2263 as well.

After some heavy duty PostPro in Photoshop to remove most of the light pollution, I had an image I’m proud of. In a geeky sort of way.

Despite the outlandish predictions of some internet pundits, the future of humanity was never at risk today. But scientists were hoping to use the fly-past to work out how best to defend the planet against asteroids in the future.

USA-193 – Image by John Locker from the SeeSat List