Category: Science

Celestia

 

I love the night sky, I used to spend hours looking at stars and planets with my 4-1/2" reflecting telescope when I was young. Now days, I rarely have the time to do that any more because of work and other things (like this blog). However, I did run across a very cool program that makes it easy to have a look around the sky. Its Celestia. This free multi platform open space exploration program is great. With it you can zoom in on where the International Space Station is, or check out the moons of Jupiter, or even see how our solar system looks from thousands of light years away.

Celestia

Mars Unearthed – In 3D!

Mars Unearthed

Here is an impressive collection of images of the planet Mars from the spacecrafts and rovers that are out there now. I’m partial to the crosseye stereo images myself but some of the anaglyphs are pretty cool.

This site contains Mars 3D anaglyphs, 3D flash movies, comparisons, and free view stereo pairs from images returned by the Mars Global Surveyor’s Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC), camera systems aboard the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, and European Space Angency’s Mars Express High Hesolution Stereo Camera (HRSC).

Mars Unearthed

Looking For Aliens On The Moon

Moon

But the big question is: If something is found, will they tell anyone?

When astronauts return to the Moon, they should keep their eyes peeled for extraterrestrial artefacts – pieces of technology from alien civilisations that have wound up on the lunar surface either by chance or design.

[via Futurismic] 

Looking for aliens on the Moon

Hitachi Mechanical Toys

Simple and not so simple mechanical toys from the engineers at Hitachi. The designs are quite clear and should tickle your brain to come up with ones of your own. The ‘south’ pointing car is a classic design that could have some use as a maze solving robot, or at least one that keep track of what was was south when it started.

[via MAKE fourm] 

HITACHI : ????? : ????????????

Translated page via Google 

Cheap ‘n Easy Digital Picture Frame

Sub $100 digital frame

 

 

 

Add one part Sony PS1 LCD screen and one part SanDisk Digital Photo Viewer bake for half an hour in a slow oven and you get a sub USD$100 digital picture frame. (I’m kidding about the oven part). I have an TFT LCD screen that I wired up as a remote TV monitor a few years ago that would be perfect for this. I’ll have ro find one of those SanDisk Digital Photo Viewers and build one of these. Funny, I remember seeing one in a store and I thought that it would be the perfect thing to load up and send to the relatives for them to see pictures of the kids. Now I can add a screen and presto! Zero instalation (ok, grandma will have to attach the wall wart, but that’s pretty easy). With 32 MB CF cards costing next to nothing this might be fun to do.

[via MAKE] 

Cheap ‘n Easy Digital Picture Frame

DIY – Alcohol Backpacking Stove

Penny alcohol burner

As many of you might have seen I recently posted a project for gutting an old light bulb in order to make other things out of it. Well one of the  great uses a resurrected light bulb has is as a small vessel to boil liquids in. As long as you don’t confine the gasses crated by the boiling you should be OK, the glass is thin and won’t take all that much pressure. This DIY camping stove would make a great heat source for boiling water in a light bulb. Plus, you can take it with you when your in the woods. How neat is that?

[via Google] 

Penny Alcohol Backpacking Stove