The scene from Mt. Wilson as the Station fire burns around it. Credit: UCLA

The Station fire in California is threatening the Mt. Wilson Observatory.  The (static) image above is from the webcam on the mountain.

If you want a live picture click here, while it lasts.

Update:  I haven’t been able to get an updated image in some time – anybody know the status of Mt. Wilson?  -  Finally got an updated image, the area looks terrible, easy to see what Don is taking about in his comment.

I enjoyed this and thought you might too.

I’m sort of in the “mega-verse” camp.

Hat tip to Keith.  Thanks Keith!

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Night time launches are spectacular!  Sounds like everything went pretty good.  Last I heard they were working an issue with a thruster, but it isn’t a show stopper for the mission.  The thruster is used for steering and is one of a pair located up by the nose.

Next stop:  International Space Station!!

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Shuttle LC-39A - NASA webcam. Click for larger. Credit: NASA

NASA will try again to launch the shuttle Discovery.  If all goes as planned the launch will occur at 11:59 pm ET.  11:59:32 to be exact.

Weather could be an issue and the chance of a launch right now is 60 percent.

What of the valve problem?  Valve problems have plagued launches and I was thinking “oh here we go again”.  Apparently the valve works fine and the problem lies with a sensor.  The valves were evaluated over the past couple of days and now there are procedures in place if the readings are suspect.  The plan is pretty simple:  cycle the valve twice (NASA speak for open and close it a couple times).  The valve needs to be closed to avoid any hydrogen leaks – seems like the concentration of hydrogen only needs to be 4% in the air to be a danger.  If you know the numbers for sure, leave a comment and let me know.

Good luck NASA!!

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The shadow produced by the rings of Saturn is pretty narrow these days. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

If you could look at Saturn through a telescope right now this the thin shadow line is just about what you would see against the planet and no rings to speak of. As time goes by, slowly the rings will start to become apparent. Of course Saturn is pretty close to the Sun so it’s pretty much un-viewable anyways.

Cassini site:

The shadows of Saturn’s rings appear as a narrow band on the planet in this image taken as Saturn approaches its August 2009 equinox.

The novel illumination geometry that accompanies equinox lowers the sun’s angle to the ringplane and causes moons and out-of-plane structures to cast long shadows across the rings. These scenes are possible only during the few months before and after Saturn’s equinox, which occurs only once in about 15 Earth years. To learn more about this special time and to see movies of moons’ shadows moving across the rings, see Moon Shadow in Motion and Weaving a Shadow.

The rings have been brightened relative to the planet to enhance visibility.

This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 21 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on June 25, 2009 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 918 nanometers. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 620,000 kilometers (385,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 26 degrees. Image scale is 33 kilometers (21 miles) per pixel.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

The LCROSS looked back at Earth and Moon on August 17th. LCROSS since has had some issues (read below). Image Credit: NASA

Boy, can you believe it?  Discovery’s launch is postponed due to a valve problem.  The valve failed to close properly during the fueling process when the tank is filled with hydrogen.  It is possible the valve works fine and the status indicators are at fault — yeah like that make a huge difference.  Be sure the folks at NASA refuse to take any chances; crews will cycle the valve to be sure everything, including instrumentation, is up to par for the launch which is scheduled for 12:22 am Friday morning.  Weather brings a 70 percent chance for launch.

Then the Lunar CrateR Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), the spacecraft launched with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, had a problem over the weekend and what mission managers are calling a “substantial” amount of fuel was lost.  Hopefully there is still enough fuel to carry out at least the primary mission.   Cool look back at us before things went awry though.

Finally South Korea attempted to launch a satellite Tuesday.  The launch looked like it was going fine, but a fairing failed to separate from the assembly and the extra mass of caused the rocket not to reach orbit.

The old saying is bad things happen in three’s, so that is three and things are bound to improve . . . .maybe.