Astronomy Looking Down

Sentinel-1 transmits radio pulses towards the Earth and measures the echoes to allow a radar image to be formed. The current typical operational mode uses a vertically polarised transmitted pulse with the receivers on the satellite measuring the echo amplitude in both vertical and horizontal polarisations. If you look at your computer screen through polarised… Read more

Twelve days after deploying our reflectors and having Sentinel-1A scan the scene, we were presenting the first batch of our Christmas Cards to the Christchurch Mayor, Lianne Delziel. The mayor invited the boys from the Christ’s College NZ Aerospace Challenge team to present their project at today’s City Council Meeting having talked to them at… Read more

On Saturday, 2019 Nov 2, we deployed our radar corner reflectors into Hagley Park.  They were placed to mimic the stars of the Southern Cross and its Pointers.  The title image shows Michael Taylor and Thimeth Wijesinghe beside “Alpha Centauri” the furtherest Pointer and the star closest to Earth – after our own Sun, just… Read more