The heads of the International Space Station (ISS) agencies from Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia and the United States met in Tokyo, Japan, on March 11, 2010, to review ISS cooperation. From the left are Dr. Keiji Tachikawa, President of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator; Jean-Jacques Dordain, Director General of the European Space Agency; Anatoly N. Permirov, Head of the Russian Space Agency; and, Dr. Steve MacLean, President of the Canadian Space Agency. With the assembly of the ISS nearing completion and the capability to support a full-time crew of six established, they noted the outstanding opportunities now offered by the ISS for on-orbit research and for discovery including the operation and management of the world's largest international space complex. The heads of agency reaffirmed the importance of full exploitation of the station's scientific, engineering, utilization, and education potential.

The two galaxies on the far left were unknown until 1968.

On March 13, 2008, the International Space Station passed across the field-of-view of Germany's remote sensing satellite, TerraSAR-X, at a distance of 195 kilometers, or 122 miles, and at a relative speed of 34,540 kilometers per hour, or more than 22,000 mph. In contrast to optical cameras, radar does not 'see' surfaces. Instead, it is much more aware of the edges and corners which bounce back the microwave signal it transmits. Smooth surfaces such as those on the station's solar generators or the radiator panels used to dissipate excess heat, unless directly facing the radar antenna, tend to deflect rather than reflect the radar beam, causing these features to appear on the radar image as dark areas. The radar image of the station therefore looks like a dense collection of bright spots from which the outlines of the space station can be clearly identified.

M106 - Galaxy in Canes Venatici

by Barry Etter

Date: 3/8/2010
Target: M106 - Galaxy in Canes Venatici
Telescope: Orion 8" f/4.9 w/Multi-Purpose Coma Corrector
Camera: Canon 40D (modified)
Filter: None
Exposures: 44x300s (3.7h) @ ISO800
Framing: North is up, 80% Crop
Start Temp: 36F
End Temp: 32F
Location: Mocksville, NC
Seeing: 3/5
Transparency: 4/5
Guiding (RMS/Osc): 0.18/30
Start Time: 9:00PM
End Time: 2:00AM
Captured with Nebulosity, stacked using DeepSkyStacker using selective 2x drizzle, processed in Photoshop.