Schierer Space

I hope all of you have had a great Thanksgiving. Of course we are thankful that K’s folks, brother and grandfather are here visiting with us. We had a great dinner and I’m looking forward to pie.

At 5 o’clock, though, we had a bonus flyby of the ISS and STS-237. Through pretty heavy clouds we still got a great view of the tandem flyby. The shuttle trailed behind the space station by about 20 seconds, but both were very bright and readily visible through the cloud cover. This is one of the brightest flybys of the shuttle I’ve ever seen. There were times when the shuttle was as bright or brighter than the space station.

Here’s a slightly enhanced long exposure (about 25 seconds), and a very enhanced version with sky map overlay.

Optics Picture of the Day brings us this beautiful video of a circumzenithal arc that appears periodically as the high altitude clouds float by.

Last weekend Nate just didn’t want to settle down for a nap so K put him down in our bed as a distraction. Once Nate fell asleep, Oreo took advantage of the situation.

First, thanks to all our vets for what you’ve done for us and this country.

And secondly, it’s 11:11:11/11/(09). Just thought you should know.

This link to Dragon*Con TV goes out to my sister.

We knew all along.