Tiny Tellurium Orbits Atop A Pencil

June 21, 2025 by Tyler August 7 Comments

We like scale models here, but how small can you shrink the very large? If you’re [Frans], it’s pretty small indeed: his Micro Tellurium fits the orbit of the Earth on top of an ordinary pencil. While you’ll often see models of Earth, Moon and Sun’s orbital relationship called “Orrery”, that’s word should technically be reserved for models of the solar system, inclusive of at least the classical planets, like [Frans]’s Gentleman’s Orrery that recently graced these pages. When it’s just the Earth, Moon and Sun, it’s a Tellurium.

The whole thing is made out of brass, save for the ball-bearings for the Earth and Moon. Construction was done by a combination of manual milling and CNC machining, as you can see in the video below. It is a very elegant device, and almost functional: the Earth-Moon system rotates, simulating the orbit of the moon when you turn the ring to make the Earth orbit the sun. This is accomplished by carefully-constructed rods and a rubber O-ring.

Unfortunately, it seems [Franz] had to switch to a thicker axle than originally planned, so the tiny moon does not orbit Earth at the correct speed compared to the solar orbit: it’s about half what it ought to be. That’s unfortunate, but perhaps that’s the cost one pays when chasing smallness. It might be possible to fix in a future iteration, but right now [Franz] is happy with how the project turned out, and we can’t blame him; it’s a beautiful piece of machining.

It should be noted that there is likely no tellurium in this tellurium — the metal and the model share the same root, but are otherwise unrelated. We have featured hacks with that element, though.

Thanks to [Franz] for submitting this hack. Don’t forget: the tips line is always open, and we’re more than happy to hear you toot your own horn, or sing the praises of someone else’s work. Continue reading “Tiny Tellurium Orbits Atop A Pencil” →

Build Your Own Telescope The Modern Way

June 19, 2025 by Al Williams 37 Comments

When we were kids, it was a rite of passage to read the newly arrived Edmund catalog and dream of building our own telescope. One of our friends lived near a University, and they even had a summer program that would help you measure your mirrors and ensure you had a successful build. But most of us never ground mirrors from glass blanks and did all the other arcane steps required to make a working telescope. However, [La3emedimension] wants to tempt us again with a 3D-printable telescope kit.

Before you fire up the 3D printer, be aware that PLA is not recommended, and, of course, you are going to need some extra parts. There is supposed to be a README with a bill of parts, but we didn’t see it. However, there is a support page in French and a Discord server, so we have no doubt it can be found.

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Space-Based Datacenters Take The Cloud Into Orbit

June 19, 2025 by Tyler August 41 Comments

Where’s the best place for a datacenter? It’s an increasing problem as the AI buildup continues seemingly without pause. It’s not just a problem of NIMBYism; earthly power grids are having trouble coping, to say nothing of the demand for cooling water. Regulators and environmental groups alike are raising alarms about the impact that powering and cooling these massive AI datacenters will have on our planet.

While Sam Altman fantasizes about fusion power, one obvious response to those who say “think about the planet!” is to ask, “Well, what if we don’t put them on the planet?” Just as Gerard O’Neill asked over 50 years ago when our technology was merely industrial, the question remains:

“Is the surface of a planet really the right place for expanding technological civilization?”

O’Neill’s answer was a resounding “No.” The answer has not changed, even though our technology has. Generative AI is the latest and greatest technology on offer, but it turns out it may be the first one to make the productive jump to Earth Orbit. Indeed, it already has, but more on that later, because you’re probably scoffing at such a pie-in-the-sky idea.

There are three things needed for a datacenter: power, cooling, and connectivity. The people at companies like Starcloud, Inc, formally Lumen Orbit, make a good, solid case that all of these can be more easily met in orbit– one that includes hard numbers.

Sure, there’s also more radiation on orbit than here on earth, but our electronics turn out to be a lot more resilient than was once thought, as all the cell-phone cubesats have proven. Starcloud budgets only 1 kg of sheilding per kW of compute power in their whitepaper, as an example. If we can provide power, cooling, and connectivity, the radiation environment won’t be a showstopper.

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History Of Forgotten Moon Bases

June 16, 2025 by Al Williams 37 Comments

If you were alive when 2001: A Space Odyssey was in theaters, you might have thought it didn’t really go far enough. After all, in 1958, the US launched its first satellite. The first US astronaut went up in 1961. Eight years later, Armstrong put a boot on the moon’s surface. That was a lot of progress for 11 years. The movie came out in 1968, so what would happen in 33 years? Turns out, not as much as you would have guessed back then. [The History Guy] takes us through a trip of what could have been if progress had marched on after those first few moon landings. You can watch the video below.

The story picks up way before NASA. Each of the US military branches felt like it should take the lead on space technology. Sputnik changed everything and spawned both ARPA and NASA. The Air Force, though, had an entire space program in development, and many of the astronauts for that program became NASA astronauts.

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End Of An Era: NOAA’s Polar Sats Wind Down Operations

June 12, 2025 by Tom Nardi 16 Comments

Since October 1978, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has operated its fleet of Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) — the data from which has been used for a wide array of environmental monitoring applications, from weather forecasting to the detection of forest fires and volcanic eruptions. But technology marches on, and considering that even the youngest member of the fleet has been in orbit for 16 years, NOAA has decided to retire the remaining operational POES satellites on June 16th.

NOAA Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES)

Under normal circumstances, the retirement of weather satellites wouldn’t have a great impact on our community. But in this case, the satellites in question utilize the Automatic Picture Transmission (APT), Low-Rate Picture Transmission (LRPT), and High Resolution Picture Transmission (HRPT) protocols, all of which can be received by affordable software defined radios (SDRs) such as the RTL-SDR and easily decoded using free and open source software.

As such, many a radio hobbyist has pointed their DIY antennas at these particular satellites and pulled down stunning pictures of the Earth. It’s the kind of thing that’s impressive enough to get new folks interested in experimenting with radio, and losing it would be a big blow to the hobby.

Luckily, it’s not all bad news. While one of the NOAA satellites slated for retirement is already down for good, at least two remaining birds should be broadcasting publicly accessible imagery for the foreseeable future.

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Learning The Basics Of Astrophotography Editing

June 12, 2025 by Bryan Cockfield 13 Comments

Astrophotography isn’t easy. Even with good equipment, simply snapping a picture of the night sky won’t produce anything particularly impressive. You’ll likely just get a black void with a few pinpricks of light for your troubles. It takes some editing magic to create stunning images of the cosmos, and luckily [Karl Perera] has a guide to help get you started.

The guide demonstrates a number of editing techniques specifically geared to bring the extremely dim lights of the stars into view, using Photoshop and additionally a free software tool called Siril specifically designed for astrophotograpy needs. The first step on an image is to “stretch” it, essentially expanding the histogram by increasing the image’s contrast. A second technique called curve adjustment performs a similar procedure for smaller parts of the image. A number of other processes are performed as well, which reduce noise, sharpen details, and make sure the image is polished.

While the guide does show some features of non-free software like Photoshop, it’s not too hard to extrapolate these tasks into free software like Gimp. It’s an excellent primer for bringing out the best of your astrophotography skills once the pictures have been captured, though. And although astrophotography itself might have a reputation as being incredibly expensive just to capture those pictures in the first place, it can be much more accessible by using this Pi-based setup as a starting point.

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NASA Is Shutting Down The International Space Station Sighting Website

May 26, 2025 by Maya Posch 40 Comments

Starting on June 12, 2025, the NASA Spot the Station website will no longer provide ISS sighting information, per a message recently sent out. This means no information on sighting opportunities provided on the website, nor will users subscribed via the website receive email or text notifications. Instead anyone interested in this kind of information will have to download the mobile app for iOS or Android.

Obviously this has people, like [Keith Cowing] over at Nasa Watch, rather disappointed, due to how the website has been this easy to use resource that anyone could access, even without access to a smart phone. Although the assumption is often made that everyone has their own personal iOS or Android powered glass slab with them, one can think of communal settings where an internet café is the sole form of internet access. There is also the consideration that for children a website like this would be much easier to access. They would now see this opportunity vanish.

With smart phone apps hardly a replacement for a website of this type, it’s easy to see how the app-ification of the WWW continues, at the cost of us users.