Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Sundials in Salzburg

Probably when you head the word "Salzburg" you will either think about Mozart or the film "the sounds of Music", but will all due respect to those subject I looked for other things in this beautiful city, and mainly for sundials (And see my article about sundials in Israel as well).
Sundials are not very practical in Salzburg where the sun is mostly behind clouds, so most of them are used for aesthetic and artistic purposes. I found five different sundials in my last visit and If you know about mores, please add a comment.


The first sundial is in St Peter's abbey

Sundial in Salzburg
Sundial in Salzburg

The two following are in the yard of Hohensalzburg (Salzburg's castle). The first one is showing the hour only in the morning.

Sundial in Salzburg
Sundial in Salzburg

Sundial in Salzburg
Sundial in Salzburg
Back to the city, these two clock are near each other in the area surrendering Mozartplatz. The sun went out of the clouds for about twenty minutes which was enough to photograph both sundials with a shadow which shows the hour.
Sundial in Salzburg
Sundial in Salzburg

Sundial in Salzburg
Sundial in Salzburg







Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Carnival of Space #370

Hi all! Here is a new edition of COS for you all to enjoy. Amazing things happen in the heavens above us all the time, so relax and find out a little about the newest stuff



From NextBigFuture

  • Aquarius a nuclear thermal rocket that uses water heated to over 3000 degrees celsius to solve many human interplanetary transportation issues.Attributes of a reusable interplanetary human spaceflight transport are proposed and applied to example transits between the Earth/Moon system and Deimos, the outer moon of Mars. Because the transport is 54% water by mass at an interplanetary departure, it is christened Aquarius. In addition to supporting crew hydration/hygiene, water aboard Aquarius serves as propellant and as enhanced crew habitat radiation shielding during interplanetary transit. Key infrastructure and technology supporting Aquarius operations include pre-emplaced consumables and subsurface habitat at Deimos with crew radiation shielding equivalent to sea level on Earth, resupply in a selenocentric distant retrograde orbit, and nuclear thermal propulsion.

    Advancing in-space nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) technology to the point where fission reactor core temperatures exceeding 3000° C can be achieved during major translational maneuvers (burns). Under these conditions, water molecules pumped into the core will disassociate into hydrogen and oxygen atoms, and specific impulse ISP near 1000 s could be achieved. This level of efficiency, twice that attainable with chemical propulsion, dramatically reduces total mass for an interplanetary transport of specified payload mass.
  • An overview about SpaceX company
From Urban Astronomer 
From The Meridian Journal
 From UniverseToday
From CosmosQuest
That's everything for this week, enjoy reading and remember that we are all sharing the same skies!