i did well to spot a total of 7 parseids over the weekend considering it was partially cloudy both nights so not perfect conditions

ETA thanks for the links

Out for a walk, just before 10 last night in West Suffolk, I saw an orange object burning up in the sky, heading virtually from due south to north, then 5 more fairly equally spaced apart burning up - was this some late Perseids ?, thanks.
Bob

It might be a sporadic meteor unattached to any meteor shower or it could be some space junk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_junk burning up in the atmosphere?

I guess only something like detailed spectrographic analysis showing what elements are in the burning body would help to identify it's not exactly readily available or portable.

And now for some more news...

Boeing selects Atlas V rocket for space taxi service

But Boeing is designing a commercial crew capsule of its own, called the CST-100. And on Thursday, it announced that the CST-100 will launch on the Atlas V rocket, assuming NASA chooses to buy space taxi service from Boeing.
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/sh...-v-rocket.html

UK's University of Exeter team uses Hubble Space Telescope to study Hot Jupiters

The team, led by the University of Exeter in Devon, says that securing nearly 200 hours' use of the telescope makes its project one of the biggest ever. The research will focus on "Hot Jupiters", exoplanets which are similar in size to Jupiter but with temperatures of 1,000 degrees or more because they orbit so close to their respective stars.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukp...1313749082096A

Russian space freighter lost

The lastest supply run to the ISS has ended in failure.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14653371

Supplies? I thought the last Shuttle mission took them enough food and gear to last a year, or did I imagine that?

Maybe they forgot the chocolate

Good God! If I was an American astronaut I would refuse to go via russia the rate they have lost things lately, even if the satellite did turn up in the end, just in the wrong place.

Been loving spotting the ISS over the past week. I've gotten all my neighbours in on the act as well and we all pop out into our respective back gardens to peek this amazing light spread over the sky!

Link here for the next few days sighting times for the UK http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata...United+Kingdom

Oh glad to hear you see it. Very long running thread at Sighting the ISS (International Space Station)

NASA Spacecraft Images Offer Sharper Views of Apollo Landing Sites


http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LR...llo-sites.html

Hooray, maybe now the moon landing conspiracy theorists will STFU. But, I won't hold my breath...

The nutters are already on NASA's Facebook Page claiming that the new photo's are fake :yawn:.

Anyone been watching Jupiter? Got up at 4am for a toilet break and had a look out. Incredibly bright and was due south at the time. Rises in the east about 9.30pm. Didn't know what it was at the time so fired up stellarium. According to the sunday times column it's 3 times brighter than the brightest star. Oh , and then we also have this supernova , better find out where the plough is.

I thought Photos would be proof....
Anyway good pictures....

Incidentally, Moon exploration was also covered in today's Sky at Night http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mk7h and there was a good interview with astronaut Eugene Cernan who, to his credit, really is in favour of much greater space exploration.

And now for and an Astro news roundup...

Russia pins Soyuz failure to production line defect
A Soyuz launch from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan,
The Russian space agency says a rocket that failed while carrying cargo to the International Space Station on 24 August had a production line defect.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14852534

It's good news that the fault has been discovered and that should mean that launches can now continue from central Asia and start up from Kourou in South America.

Nasa's Grail probes to make lunar gravity maps
A Delta rocket sent the Grail twins on their way. Its launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station occurred at 09:08 EDT (13:08 GMT; 14:08 BST).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14825641

Rover begins 'whole new mission' at Martian crater
Opportunity arrived at the 13.7-mile-wide Endeavour crater in early August after a 13-mile drive since climbing out of the much smaller Victoria crater in August 2008.
http://www.astronomynow.com/news/n1109/02opp/

I seen this a while back and thought it was very good. Saturn fly-through using several thousand images from Cassini.

http://vimeo.com/11386048

NASA has unveiled plans for it's shuttle-replacement launcher, cleverly called the Space Launch System or SLS!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14915725

Basically it's the Ares launcher design from several years ago re-hashed - complete with the Orion capsule on top. I seriously wonder sometimes.

lets hope its better than the shuttle ,well it should be

Slightly better video quality.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14906539

Looks like an old Saturn V rocket with a couple of Space Shuttle booster rockets bolted onto it. Are NASA raiding their spares parts cupboard?

I hope so, its a tried and tested technology, and it works.

There was some chat a few years back that this new booster would use the recycled SSMEs - any mention of that today?

Yes, 5 on the main first stage with 2 enlarged shuttle SRBs.

There is something to be said for re-using old technology, especially if it's been proved to be very reliable. However there is an obvious limitation to how far you can push that technology. Russia has made some fantastic advances in rocket technology which the US has 'purchased' but seems reluctant to aid Russia in pushing that forward at the expense of their own designs.

Still a 2017 launch isn't too bad, although as the Ares 1 was already into it's launch tests 2 or 3 years ago I'm not quite sure why it'll take that long to get this 'new' system to the pad.

That's a clunky old rocket! If NASA wants to move freight into space then it needs to get itself a a Corellian XS Light Freighter or two!! Ok, a Millenium Falcon type craft to the non geeks!!

Not sure why there hasn't been much exposure to the last raft of exo-planets but it included a real gem out of the 600 or so new candidates. A super-Earth with 3.6 times the mass of Earth and lieing just on the inside edge of the habitable zone around it's star which means if it has a dense atmosphere (likely) it will have liquid water. It has an orbital period of just over 50 days and best of all, it's a mere 30 or so light years away. That's important because within a few years there will be telescopes which can actually observe a planet that close and analyse it's atmosphere for tell-tale signs of life.

Exciting news indeed. As you say, we're just waiting for the next gen telescopes - light and radio.