Apollo 11 - movie reviews

50 years ago, on 20 July 1969 (UT20h17), the Eagle module from Apollo 11 landed at Tranquility Base. Hours later, at UT02h56, Neil Armstrong made history by becoming the first man to walk on the Moon.

Recently I watched two movies going back in time. The first one is "First Man". The movie is a bioptic of Neil Amstrong and follows the years leading up to the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon. The movie gives insight on the life of Neil Armstrong, his family and other astronauts.

The other movie is "Apollo 11" and a documentary film. It tells the story of the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, the first spaceflight from which men walked on the Moon. The film consists solely of archival footage, including 70 mm film previously unreleased to the public, and does not feature narration, interviews or modern recreations. The Saturn V rocket, Apollo crew consisting of Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins, and Apollo program Earth-based support staff are prominently featured in the film.

What a picture, but the movie gave even a shot taken from this ring - WOW

I saw Apollo 11 at the IMAX theatre in Brussels with two Helios friends. Personally this is my favorite and really amazing as the images and the sound gave a feeling being part of the launch and mission. Some part of the film I never saw before or I did not even knew. So a must-see-movie.

Dozens of rows with engineers sitting in form theis "desks", mosthly double seated - I Never saw this before!

Thunderstorms and Lightning : Live coverage website

Current Thunderstorms and lightning : see this website for live coverage blitzortung.com

d Lightning : see

Center of Milky Way Sgr A* very active

Galactic Center at the sky

The area of our Galactic center with the supermassive black hole, Sgr A*, showed an increase by a factor 75 in the near-infrared over a 2h period. Observations were done with VLT & Keck telescopes. It's not clear what the root cause is and more observations are needed, but this is the first time ever such increase is seen. 

Source : see this link.

Double Rainbow with Alexander's band

Bright double rainbow this evening. The dark area between the two rainbows is clearly visible and known as Alexander's band.

Saturn

Again a clear sky but seeing is moderate; later, at midnight, seeing is very bad. Picture taken with TAL200K, ASI224MC, Barlow x2 and ADC. Exposure time was 3 minutes. Stacking with AutoStakkert and final editing in CS4.

Backyard StarTrail

Backyard Startrail with Nikon D7500 and Tamron lens 10-24mm f/3.5. Setting f/3.5 10mm, exposuere 322x30s and ISO1250. Startrail with Startrails v2.3.

Planetary Nebula NGC7094

The very faint planetary nebula NGC7094 is located in Pegasus. Total exposure time was 17,5 minutes with Nikon D7500 and TAL200K f/8.5. Pictures are converted to DNG and stacking using DeepSkyStacker. Final editing with CS4.