From the site: “‘Astro IIDC’ is a[n] Astronomy and Microscopy oriented application developed from the ground up to make FireWire camera imaging easier on the Mac.”

Use a supported FireWire cam and your telescope or microscope to capture exposures up to 1.029 seconds, and reduce CCD noise with Flat Frame division and Dark Frame subtraction. Live and time-lapse movies can also be created with Astro IIDC.

Requirements need at least an 800MHz G3 and 128 MB RAM. Lots of hard drive space will be needed for real-time movies. Unfortunately, due to limitations of the hardware, Apple’s iSite is not supported.

Visit ASC’s site for full details and specs, and to get your copy for $49.95US. And let me know how it works for you.

My friend Michael over at RocketForge posted a little blurb about an organization called Yuri’s Night, an organization that aims to bring the art, music, dance, and fashion communities together with the space community.

Nnng? Sounds interesting. Of course, this means that the crew for the VSS Enterprise will look fabulous.

SpaceShipOne wins the $10Million Ansari X Prize.

One more to go! But this flight was not without its glitches — the craft began an unexpected roll soon after the rocket fired to lift it to space. It looked awesome, but no doubt Rutan and Co. will be checking things out before next week’s second flight. Altitude for this flight: 67 miles, 5 over the 62 mile requisite.

The first of two flights to win the Ansari X-Prize competition will be launched Wednesday, September 29th at 6AM PST. Mohave Aerospace Ventures/Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne will have to make a second successful launch within two weeks to win the $10,000,00US prize. I have a feeling, though, that no one really cares about the money.

The X-Prize site includes directions to the launch area for public viewing, and a guide for educators.

The “America’s Space Prize,” that’s what. SpaceToday.net reports that Robert Bigelow is planning a $50,000,00US prize for the first team to put five to seven people in orbit by the end of the decade. Given that reaching orbit is much harder than the sub-orbital X-prize, I have a feeling that 2010 is a bit soon. I hope I’m wrong.

It never freakin’ fails. If there’s gonna be a chance of a good Perseid meteor shower, the weather sucks in Tifton.