Sunday, May 20, 2007

Space Station and Venus

The bad astronomer recently exhibited a picture, taken from the surface of the Earth, of the space station and the planet Venus together in the sky. Due to distances and atmospheric distortion, the details of both the planet and the station were difficult to discern.

Fortunately, here at the Lemming Laboratories, we have managed to scrounge up the temporary use of a space telescope. As a result, we were able to take a similar picture of a space station / Venus conjunction, only with much higher magnification and with more visible detail. That picture is shown below. As you can see, both objects are clearly visible, as are some of the details of the planet’s clouds and the station’s trunk. Enjoy.

2 comments:

RBH said...

Writing as one who worked in aerospace in the 1960s, for several years on the Apollo command Module control system, and who supported manned spaceflight at that time, I have to say that the white elephant is an appropriate symbol for that money sink in the sky.

Chris R said...

Ah, a man after my own heart. And in 30 years, we may find one on the Moon as well.