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August 20, 2021 Archives

Friday, August 20, 2021

TRACKING WITH CLOSEUPS: Mutual Eclipse of Satellites of Jupiter

These images show the astonishing progress in amateur astronomy brought about by electronic image sensors and image processing software. Not long ago, even the largest observatory telescopes were unable to resolve the moons of Jupiter as more than starlike dots. Now, with a high-end (11 inch [30 cm] Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain) amateur telescope, perfectly able to be set up and used from a back yard, it's possible not only to resolve the discs of the Jovian moons but to observe the shadow cast by one on another!

Posted at 12:00 Permalink

THE HAPPENING WORLD: Tesla AI Day

Here is the full two and a half hour Tesla AI Day presentation, including the excerpts posted earlier about Tesla Bot and Tesla Dojo.

Posted at 11:13 Permalink

THE HAPPENING WORLD: Spacewalk from Chinese Tiangong Space Station

Posted at 11:07 Permalink

THE HAPPENING WORLD: Tesla Bot and Project Dojo

Tesla “Project Dojo”, machine learning training processor:

Question and answers:

Posted at 10:25 Permalink

CONTEXT: OneWeb/Soyuz Launch #9 Abort—Clueless Commentator Comically Confused

Let's watch the last minute of the countdown to the scheduled launch of 32 OneWeb satellites from Baikonur on a Soyuz launcher under contract to Arianespace. The launch sequencer cut off the countdown prior to start of the ignition sequence (in fact, before detachment of the second umbilical, which precedes it). News of this apparently failed to reach the Arianespace commentator who, unlike those on SpaceX launch webcasts who hail from the engineering staff, seems to represent the public relations department.

In any case, as the rocket just sits there long after the scheduled launch time, we're treated to a hilarious description of “smoke billowing” around it (just condensation from the cold liquid oxygen tanks) and the ignition process which wasn't happening. So far, there have been no reports of what caused the cutoff or announcement of the next launch attempt.

Posted at 09:48 Permalink