BBC News | FORUM | Space: Monitoring The Earth Thursday, 21 February, 2002, 1418 GMT space monitoring the Earth. You quizzed space engineer Derek Todman on the European space Agency s biggest ever satellite http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/forum/1834102.stm
Extractions: You quizzed space engineer Derek Todman on the European Space Agency's biggest ever satellite, Envisat, which is set for launch on 1 March. James Allan in the UK asked: Will the satellite be able to study the impact of human activity on clouds, and shed some light on how big an effect this is having on climate forcing? Derek Todman replied: As you are probably aware, the impact of human activity on the environment is a very complex affair. There is not only a human impact but nature itself impacts the clouds, namely the seasonal variations. Envisat will provide a significant amount of data over its lifetime to measure the variation in a number of different aspects of our environment.
Extractions: JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, Texas The crews of the space shuttle Atlantis and international space station Alpha are spending a relatively quite day monitoring the newly installed Destiny science lab. Destiny's computers and systems will allow NASA to take control of the space station in a month or two. Up until now, the two Russian pieces of Alpha provided the life support and commanding capability. GALLERY Images from the installation
Computer Controlled Weather Monitoring weather monitoring. I have always liked to measure physical quantities from the environment (weather, etc.). That must come from http://archive.eso.org/people/bpirenne/weather.html
Extractions: I have always liked to measure physical quantities from the environment (weather, etc.). That must come from my fatalistic side: if you can't change it, find consolation in measuring its behaviour: maybe an explanation will emerge... Turns out this is how science works. You observe a phenomenon, repeatedly, with different equipment, different resolutions, and at the end you can start thinking about a model which will serve at predicting the behaviour of things. Now generations of meteorologists have been working on this problem, with some success, and let me say it immediately, I won't solve their problem here! I just find it fun to be able to gather under one set of purposes my love for weather watching and my computer skills. There is also a real application that can make use of all this: an automatic astronomical observatory . This sort of application is described elsewhere and I will concentrate here on some aspect of modern weather watching. Over 20 years ago now, when I was 15 year old, I built my first electronic weather station: A digital LED thermometer, bought as a kit, assembled in an alumium case. This basic setup was soon enhanced with, within the same enclosure -see picture below, a wind rose with colored LED to show the wind direction. The real detector here was a wind compass attached to the roof. It was a metal an wood assembly (I should say contraption!) where a magnet would switch REED relays on and off as the wind was pushing the vane in one direction or another. The relays would then activate one or the other LED to indicate the wind direction. Wind speed was also there, but no fancy counting here: just an LED, blinking faster with faster wind. The detector was a simple wooden two-blade fan making an electrical contact at each revolution. The picture next to this is for sentimentality only.
Dr Sky - Products & Services of areas, from telescopes and binoculars to software, books and magazines, camera and video equipment along with a host of aviation and space related products. http://www.drsky.com/store.shtml
Extractions: More Favorite Links... "Dr.Sky" will search the market for products or services that impress us here at Sky Source Productions and pass on these tips to you! In the future we may be offering a line of "Dr.Sky" select products, custom hats and T-Shirts, special interest video's and other related products or services that will continue to have you "keeping your eyes to the skies". The recommendations section will look at products from a wide range of areas, from telescopes and binoculars to software, books and magazines, camera and video equipment along with a host of aviation and space related products. As we expand, we may start our own rating system, based on our own "Stars". Stay tuned and please check out the following products and services. Imagine having a complete sky atlas at your fingertips in a unique 8 or 10 set CD-ROM package, that's not a typical sky map, but a unique photographic sky atlas. Now you have the entire digitized sky survey of the famous Palomar Observatory Sky Survey of the early 1950's. The first set in the series covers the northern sky from pole to -15 degrees. The second series, developed by the Royal Observatory of Edinburgh, covers the entire southern sky on 10 CD-ROM's. "Dr.Sky" feels that this is one of the most impressive set of sky photos that you will find anywhere for the price. You can use the easy to view star photos to help confirm a new comet discovery or novae search. This is a "must" have for the serious student of the sky.
Ocean Surface Topography From Space Ocean Surface Topography From space This site provides information on the many aspects of the study of the sea surface from space. Measuring the ocean surface topography provides information for http://rdre1.inktomi.com/click?u=http://topex-www.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html&y=
