It's been a busy few days. On Saturday night, I was just about to switch off the PC and head for bed, when I saw a Tweet about the impending launch of the latest NASA spacecraft. I don't usually pay much attention to launches, but since it was just 5 minutes away, thought I'd look in. After the launch, we saw live video from a camera mounted on the rocket itself, and I wondered how long it would take to get around to this part of the world, and whether or not it would be visible. I rapidly decided there'd be little hope of seeing anything visually, although it would be above the horizon, being tracked by antennae at the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex.

However, that did remind me that I needed to test a couple of 2nd hand lenses I'd acquired earlier in the day, so plonked one on the camera and headed outside. After 8 minutes and a few shots, I looked behind me and saw an obvious diffuse object near Orion, which I initially assumed was a small cloud ... or a comet ... and then I realised it could be the Mars-bound spacecraft. I hastily turned the camera round, took a quick snap - and was astonished at what was recorded - then got the exposure settings correct and the camera aimed properly, and started snapping away with an automatic interval timer. I kept going until about 5 minutes after I'd lost sight of it in binoculars. I wish I'd seen it sooner, or had just ignored my feeling that it wouldn't have been visible, and actually LOOKED for it! Still, what I recorded seems to have been unique, as there are so far no other reports of anyone else photographing it leaving Earth orbit. A couple of guys have photographed it much further out, but without the exhaust plume that was visible over Australia. Even NASA seems to have been interested in what I saw. Here's just one image, also showing three orbiting satellites passing by; click the image for more pics and timelapse videos.

So. The move was completed. The garage is still a shambles, with the car out on the driveway, but that will change ere long. Heather has done her customary job of getting everything shipshape very quickly, but as ever, the devil is in the detail, and there are plenty of little bits & pieces that have to be properly organised. I am determined to cut down on the clutter that usually surrounds me, so am dragging my heels about filling my room with the same old stuff that I had there in the last house.

We are all quite happy with the new place, which seems to be slightly larger in every room except the kitchen. The aircon is serving us well so far, although we've yet to have any really hot days. So far we are just running it when the heat & humidity are too much, and on the "dry" setting rather than "cool", which does all that we need. No need for 18 degrees around here!

Happy to say that it's pretty quiet here, although I've heard a neighbour with a noisy exhaust roar down the road before sunup a couple of times. At least we've heard no barking dogs so far. It's hardly any further to work from this house either, so I'm content with that. Speaking of the drive to work, here's the 21km, run in less than a minute:

_One unfortunate thing about the timing of the move is that it came at the time I wanted to try to photograph one (or even both) of my asteroids. However, after lugging boxes around I didn't fancy getting up in the small hours and schlepping up to the planetarium to have a go, and I think I might have run out of time. The photo wouldn't be Earth-shattering, but I'd like to catch it while it's as bright as it is, which won't occur again for a few years, apparently. Trouble is, it's now so close to the Sun that it will be in twilight by the time it's high enough in the sky to capture, and you really don't want twilight interfering with a very faint object; nevertheless, I'll have a go. Meanwhile, I've been trying to snap other things, the results of which can be found here and here.