Smithsonian National Space and Air Museum Washington DC

Visiting the current capital Washington DC of the USA means also visiting the famous Smithsonian National Space and Air Museum located at the Mall.

I spend more about 4h in the museum but you could walk around for days.

The exibition is enormous with focus on planes, the space race, the moon landings, space shuttles, space stations and many many more.

In the entry hal you already can touch a moon rock and you see the original Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia. This was the only partian of the spacecraft (eagle and service module) that returned back to earth together with Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.

This is an actual Apollo Lunar Module, one of the 12 built. It was the second LM2 which would be part of Apollo 6 but was not needed as Apollo 5 was very succesfully. 

Apollo -Soyuz test project connecting an US and USSR space ship in 1975

Mercury Friendship Space craft bringing the first American in Space. John Glenn was the second man in space after Yoeri Gagarin.

The Hubble Space Telescope Structural Dynamic test Vehicle (SDTV)

This is the actual back up of the primary mirror of the Hubble Space Telescope. In total two identical primary mirrors are built. One in space, one in the Smithsonian.

One of three engines of the Space Shuttle.  Also the F-1 Engine from the Saturn rocket is shown. This one of the 5 engines from the Saturn and built in the 70'.

If you have ever the chance to visit Washington DC, make sure you visit the Smithsonian National Space and Air Museum!

Space Shuttle Enterprise Pavilion

Seeing the Space Shuttle in real live? It is possible in the Intrepid, Sea, Air and Space Museum Complex at Pier 86 in New York













A board the aircraft carrier Intrepid the Space Shuttle is located within the Space Shuttle Pavilion at the back of the flight deck.

 The Space Shuttle "Enterprise". Standing next to the shuttle you realize how huge this shuttle is.
The Enterprise was the first shuttle build for testing purpose. It was build in 1977 !! The 5 other shuttles Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour.

Record Rain @ Averbode

Today, August 8th severe rain @ Averbode. Registration of 42.2mm of rain.

45th nniversary of Apollo 11

The picture of the  moon waxing crescent was taken last friday August 1st. As a rememberence of the 45th anniversary of Apollo 11 and a man walking on the moon, I'm showing the landingsspot of both Apollo 11 and Apollo 17.
In the area you also will find the "Jansen Crater" :)

Weather results July

Weather graphs for July month monitored using Weather station WMR 200, registrated by Cumulus and visualised by Wunderground.com

Astronomical Seeing

In order to prepare for observing the stars, planets, ... watch the weather channel.  Personally I like the one from meteoblue ... meteoblue.com

Saturn photograph

All in all it was not an ideal day for observing neither the sun neither planets or stars today. Low and high clouds came across but in between I could make this picture from Saturn. Currently Saturn is visible low 30° in the South - South-West.
This is my first picture from Saturn ever. Without guiding instruments it's quit difficult to even make a picture.