Ken Presley's Astro Blog

Just a blogo test post…

kenpresley — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 23:58:20 +0000

Just testing blogo blogging tool…

Al Gore and a test…

kenpresley — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:24:28 +0000

Just testing the Mars-Edit software. Below is a picture of Al Gore meeting the Klingon ambassador (sorry, just could not resist). Photo (and joke) courtesy of fakesteve.blogspot.com.

Discovery STS-120 Mission

kenpresley — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 23:25:54 +0000

Below are some great photographs of the space shuttle Discovery as it rests on launchpad 39A and then roars skyward to deliver the Harmony (node 2) module to the International Space Station during the STS-120 mission. Also included is a nice mission crew photo including mission commander Pamela Melroy. As usual photos are courtesy of NASA.

Great amateur Jupiter photo

kenpresley — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 01:27:30 +0000

Below is a great photo of Jupiter from an amateur astronomy photographer with the nom de plume of AutoClub (Paul) and also courtesy of Universe Today. It was made by stacking (combining with various computer image processing software) a large set of Jupiter photos he took with a Celestron C11 telescope. For amateur astronomy, it is very very good!

STS-117 Atlantis Orbiter Photos

kenpresley — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 23:19:42 +0000

Below are some very nice photos of the Atlantis orbiter as it becomes ready for the STS-117 mission to the International Space Station. As usual, photos are courtesy of NASA.

Blue Origin Goddard Vehicle

kenpresley — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 20:46:44 +0000

Below are a couple of interesting pictures from Blue Origin of their first development vehicle, named Goddard, which is a vertical take-off, vertical-landing vehicle designed to take several astronauts on a sub-orbital journey. Blue Origin is a private spaceflight company funded by Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com. See the BlueOrigin.com
website for more pictures and some very interesting movies of the first test flight of this vehicle.

STS-116 Spacewalk Images

kenpresley — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 01:35:24 +0000

Below are two beautiful images from the STS-116 mission to continue construction of the International Space Station. The first image is of Robert Curbeam Jr. and the second image is Curbeam along with ESA astronaut Christer Fuglesang. Images are courtesy of NASA via Space.com. As always, click images to enlarge.

PicasaWeb Daytona 500 Album

kenpresley — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 17:57:14 +0000

Below is a link to one of my Google PicasaWeb picture albums of the 2004 Daytona 500.

Daytona 500 2004

Mars Spirit Rover McMurdo Panorama

kenpresley — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 20:09:31 +0000

The fantastic image below is the recently released 360 degree “McMurdo” panorama taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit from its Mars winter observation post known as “Low Ridge”. The overall panorama consists of 1449 Pancam images and represents a data volume of almost 500 megabytes! Image is of course courtesy of NASA and JPL. As always, click on the image to enlarge.

Anousheh Ansari To ISS

kenpresley — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 20:57:20 +0000

Below are a couple of nice images of American/Iranian businesswoman Anousheh Ansari as she trains and then departs on a Russian Soyuz for her trip to the International Space Station. Images are courtesy of NASA/Bill Ingalls and AnoushehAnsari.com.