New Forest Observatory ®

From 5:39 p.m. tonight – another faint ISS pass – this time due to a blazing Moon directly behind me. You can JUST see the ISS running across the middle of the image.

Tonight’s ISS pass in nautical twilight (too light really to take the image) – but you can just about make it out.

It’s been a loooong time for one of these – so I’ve got a bit out of practice. But this was tonight’s Space Station pass at 5:37 p.m. I got part of a nice long 6-minute pass and you see it disappears off the top of the screen where there is the glow from a very bright Moon. I will do better next time

Insects can inspire those researching into advanced optical devices. This is a Morpho Rhetenor butterfly – and that intense blue metallic-looking colour is due to the structure of the butterfly’s wing scales. Each scale acts like a tiny photonic crystal (diffraction grating). Blue in the Living World is usually produced by nanometre structures, as blue pigments are usually based on materials toxic to life.