10 Years ago : Last flight of Space Shutlle Atlantis

Exactly 10 years ago, on July 8th 2011, it was the last time a space shuttle was launched. The Atlantis,  mission STS-135, was launched to the ISS and returned to Earth on July 21.

Last year I visited the Atlantis at the Space Kennedy Center in Florida. When I a look back at those pictures ... amazing. 

ARISS SSTV Expedition 65 June 21-27 Awards

ARISS SSTV Expedition 65 June 21-27 : all awards, including the Russion Award received.

Sunspot AR2835

Clouds disappeared this evening so I could take some pictures of the huge sunspot AR2835.
Setting :Nikon D7500 and TAL200K f/8.5 with Baader Solarfilm ND3.8: ISO100, 1/3200s. Raw picture converted to DNG and editing using CS4.

 

July 4th Sun with Sunspot

Early this morning I could observe the Sun with a couple of Sunspots. Unfortunately clouds covered fast the sky.

ARISS SSTV Expedition 65 June 21-27 Awards

 

Receiving my Awards from ARISS SSTV Expedition 65 (series 18) June 21-27 2021. Awards received from Indonesian Space Explorer, ARISS SSTV Award and B'SATTRAC Indonesia. Still awaiting Award from Russia R4UAB. 

This is the text which was received together with the email from ARISS SSTV :

This time the SSTV images series is dedicated to radioamateur astronauts and cosmonauts and their activities on board of the Space Shuttle, Mir Space station and International Space Station. The ARISS SSTV Award presents three special people.

On the left: Musa Manarov U2MIR - Russian cosmonaut who launched amateur radio equipment on board of the Mir space station. He made the first amateur radio communication in October 1988. Consequently, the MAREX (Mir Amateur Radio Experiment) and MIREX (Mir International Amateur radio EXperiment) programs were created.

Center: Sergey Krikalyov U5MIR - Russian cosmonaut, member of the Expedion 1 on the International Space Station. In November 2000 launched an amateur radio station on board of the ISS. This event was the beginning of ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) school contacts. Many cosmonauts and astronauts also conducted unscheduled radio communications, which made a lot of joy for the radio amateurs around the world.

On the right: American Owen Garriott W5LFL who was the first astronaut and amateur radio operator to take with him on the space shuttle Columbia (STS-9 mission in 1983) amateur radio equipment and conducted radio communications with radio amateurs on Earth. Hereby the SAREX program (Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment later called Space Amateur Radio Experiment) was created.

Results ARISS SSTV Exp 65 event June 21 - 27

The ARISS SSTV "expedition 65" event scheduled between June 21 and June 27 did result in receiving 8 images out of 12. The images reflected past activities on the ISS, MIR and Space Shuttle.

Setting : using Websdr from both Noordwijk (Nl) as Nürnberg (D) and software MMSSTV. 

Results : I was able to receive  8/12 pictures from the ISS. Quality was always poor when comparing with the X-mas event 2020. The reason of the poor quality could be either low orbits of the ISS station and noise due to submitting signals from other sources (signals at 145780Hz and 145820Hz). 

Conclusion: still fun and unique to receive images from the International Space Station. 

Video Compilation of NLC above Belgium

 A compilation of NLC last month. A captured pictures of NLC during 3 nights in June 2021.