iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

This graph shows astronomical increase of mass which will be possible to sent to low Earth orbit for $100000 when the Starship design goal is reached. The orange datapoint at 2026 is the extrapolation when the Starship stack can be reused 5 times.

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Great bike infrastructure here from Newport Beach to Huntington Beach!

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Obscure astronomical instrument of the day: The Meridian Circle (German: Passageninstrument) These special telescopes fixed on the ground pointing exactly south, could only be rotated vertically along the meridian. That allowed ultra precise measurement of star elevations above the horizon, and ...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

That cell-like fractured rock on Mars, I posted about earlier today and a few days ago, was too hard to work on by the Perseverance Rover core sample drill! That's a strong indication for the white material being quartz (SiO2). However, it doesn't look like the large crystalline quartz ...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Rock on Mars with cell-like fracture structure refilled with black crystals, seen with the Perseverance Rover cameras 2 days ago, mission day 1967. More: www.areo.info/mars20/ecams...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

After climbing up the Victory Column in Berlin on the large traffic circle named Großer Stern (Great Star), I could verify with my Helical Rise app the alignment of the Große Sternallee (Great Star tree-lined avenue) towards the heliacal rising location of Sirius. App: apps.apple.com/app/heliacal...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Yesterday I visited the Archenhold Observatory in Berlin, built in 1896 with the equivalent of today's 2.5 M$ in private donations to Friedrich Simon Archenhold’s crowdfunding project as a public telescope for the Berlin Trade Fair. At 21m it is still the longest refractor, with a 68 cm lens...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Great website with historic photos not found elsewhere: raketenflugplatz-berlin.de About the Raketenflugplatz (rocket airport) Berlin where pioneers like Rudolf Nebel, Klaus Riedel, Wernher von Braun, Hermann Oberth and many others in 1930 launched spaceflight as we know it today...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

This new atom model changing its rotation based on its charge is most likely a revolutionary discovery sending an momentum through the scientific lattice! It even includes in this shape the electron, thereby avoiding the complexity of an additional elementary fine structure component.

youtube.com

How Electron Guns Work Without Firing Electrons - LIVE! Drs. Bendebury & DeLay (DemystifySci +443)

YouTube video by The DemystifySci Podcast

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Now after the 2026 total solar eclipse I have made my ISS trajectory simulation script public so everyone can run it in the free GMAT astrodynamics software to simulate it under gravity, solar radiation pressure and atmospheric drag, including periodic apogee orbit boosts. github.com/isenberg/iss...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Black and white rocks on Mars in front of Perseverance Rover yesterday, mission day 1955: areo.info/mars20/ecams...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Finally a few real images from the NASA WB-57 high altitude aircraft which followed the solar eclipse totality shadow last week. It's surprisingly black. A black Sun in front of a black sky which made even the automatic camera tracker lost its target; red X visible: youtube.com/shorts/myZ9k...

youtube.com

2026 Solar Eclipse @ 50,000 Feet

YouTube video by NASA

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

This small pebble on Mars with thin black filled fractures appears to be highly siliceous rock, similar to white river pebbles in the Alps Mountains. Photos taken today mission day 1949 by Perseverance Rover cameras Watson, Hazcam, and Navcam. More images from that day: areo.info/mars20/ecams...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

This painting, "Dionysius the Areopagite Converting the Pagan Philosophers", by Antoine Caron in the 1570s, I found remarkable while visiting The Getty a few months ago: It's the 1571 total solar eclipse with interesting physical and symbolical details. getty.edu/art/collecti...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

This week's total solar eclipse is a bit difficult to observe as only in a small part of Iceland and Greenland the narrow band of totality crosses around noon or afternoon, while in Spain only in the evening. Below my GoPro video from Arkansas in 2024 of the complete eclipse youtu.be/FYVPN2e5o5c?...

youtu.be

Total Solar Eclipse 2024 in realtime and 4K with original nature sound, full 4 minutes of totality

YouTube video by Holger Isenberg

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Cosmic curiosity about the 12 August 2026 total solar eclipse on Wednesday: At the north pole, an observer would only see a partial eclipse with a thin solar crescent (Stellarium screenshot with orange sky). But at 100 km above the north pole in space, it is a total solar eclipse (black sky).

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

The ISS will move through the Solar Eclipse shadow on Wednesday August 12 this week as my today's repeated calculation confirmed, now with current trajectory data from nasa.gov/spot-the-sta... . It will be only inside the partial shadow (penumbra) which won't provide any interesting photos or data.

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Strange rock wreckage on Mars in large and small scale on an otherwise rock-free plain. Perseverance Rover this week, mission day 1941: areo.info/mars20/ecams...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Victor Glover, Artemis II Pilot, was asked: “Which spot on the Moon would you pick as a landing site for the first mission to return to the lunar surface?” He would avoid the difficult lighting at the south pole and prefers an Apollo site in daylight. That also avoids the NRHO orbit. At 15:09:

youtu.be

NESF 2026 - Victor Glover

YouTube video by Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Sunset view on Mars today, mission day 1939, Perseverance Rover. In the panorama view a dust storm appears to approach from the right. Also interesting how this location is completely void of larger rocks and the surface is precisely speckled by equally sized pebbles. areo.info/mars20/ecams/1939

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

This white chalk-like small rock caught interest of the Mars rover team and they investigated closer. Yesterday sol 1937, Perseverance Rover. More images from that day: areo.info/mars20/ecams... and with the free areoHDR app

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

The August 12 total solar eclipse shadow will be followed by NASA JSC's WB-57 high altitude aircraft to record details of the chromosphere and lower corona with a multispectral camera developed at NASA Langley Research Center: science.nasa.gov/science-rese...

science.nasa.gov

NASA Science Soars During August Total Solar Eclipse - NASA Science

Each time the Moon covers the Sun during a total solar eclipse — darkening daytime skies and briefly revealing the Sun’s ethereal outer atmosphere, the corona

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

The ISS crew will have the rare opportunity on August 12 to observe a partial solar eclipse! That's my result for an orbit calculation with estimated drag and solar radiation pressure using the NASA GMAT tool. Around 13:10 EDT the station will be inside the penumbra for 8 minutes above Canada...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Starship testflight 13 currently live on youtube.com/watch?v=5XIB... reached another kilometer-marker closer to Mars! Let's take a look at the variations of sky colors on Mars over the seasons...

youtube.com

Starship Flight 13

YouTube video by Ellie in Space

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Reminder to current cosmologists that Hannes Alfvén, who received the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discoveries leading towards and work on his magnetohydro-dynamics model of space plasma (MHD, "first approach") has told everyone in his award ceremony speech to ...

nobelprize.org

Nobel Prize in Physics 1970

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1970 was divided equally between Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén "for fundamental work and discoveries in magnetohydro-dynamics with fruitful applications in different parts of pla...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

The enormous Hangar 1 at NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, shiny refurbished now since a few months under a decades long lease by Google's subsidiary Planetary Ventures LLC. It provided a spacey environment at the NASA Exploration Science Forum 2026 poster session: sservi.nasa.gov/nesf2026

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

For the Mars images color processing I searched for usable test images captured by actual Mars cameras under sunlight on Earth to validate my calculated calibration, which is based on the published spectral characteristics of each camera. No suitable set of such images exists in public.

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Reposted by Holger Isenberg

Don Davis @ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Later I found out that stamps based on those paintings were made. It's an interesting sort of honor, and odd to occasionally see something like that. Echoes of those oil paintings done in a third floor room of a Classical revival mansion in Atherton I lived in for 9 fateful years as a tenant.

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Today at the Viking Lander 50th anniversary at NASA Ames, one famous guest was an original Viking Lander Life Detection device with its Labeled Release (LR), Gas Exchange (GEX), and Pyrolytic Release (PR) experiments. Thanks to Steve Jurvetson who brought the unit from his museum!

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Reposted by Holger Isenberg

Don Davis @ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Mars as imagined just before the landing. This painting, one of a trio done for NASA HQ, ended up being used for the JPL landing press badge. What a thing that was to see when I arrived and signed in!

This painting was, as is much of Astronomical/Space art, a summary of what was known of the subject as well as what about it I found visually appealing. Low gravel bar ridges and dunes dominate the scene, based on the original landing site chosen in Chryse Planita. A suggestion of sedimentary layering is shown in the lower right foreground knoll. The sky was portrayed as blue, making the assumption that it would be like a Stratospheric altitude Earthly sky. Earth is the daylight star just to the left of the lander. The aeroshell on it's parachute from which the lander was dropped drifts downwind in the distance to the left.
The reference materials I had available then were a step or two short of how the lander actually appeared, with the biggest difference being the lack of the rubbery fabric covers over the propellent tanks.

#Sciart

The press badge issued to media at the JPL press area. The last appearance of the Mars of old based on imagination and educated guesswork. This badge is now among my treasured trophies.

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

This small note on page 2 of the January 1977 National Geographic magazine is the only publication I'm aware of where Viking Lander images are shown, color-processed in the same way as every commercial digital camera is applying them today. Who can match the names to the persons?

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Martian Rock Design Competition winner, seen on full resolution 20MP Hazcam image yesterday sol 1921. Best with the areoHDR app. areo.info/mars20/ecams...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Viking Lander 2 followed on September 3, 1976, with a landing on Mars in a far northern latitude of 48°N, compared to 22°N of Viking Lander 1. At that latitude later in the mission, morning water ice frost, or maybe even a thin layer of water snow was visible even late in the afternoon. 📷areoHDR app

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Most likely you have never seen those 1976 Mars Viking Lander images before in this high quality as almost all publicly available color images are low quality scans from then already old chemical film prints created in 1977. Now in my free areoHDR app for iPhone / iPad and Android: areo.info

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

50 years ago on Monday (20 July 1976) Viking Lander 1 reached the Mars surface. The first U.S. landing on another planet and showed the first digital color images from another world. Now in the free areoHDR app for iPhone: apps.apple.com/app/areohdr/... and Android: play.google.com/store/apps/d...

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Reposted by Holger Isenberg

tthomopoulos @tthomopoulos.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Mars in enhanced visible colour, imaged by the Emirates Mars Mission / EXI on 18 July 2025, from about 20,560 km. Image credit : Emirates Mars Mission / EXI / UAE Space Agency / MBRSC / LASP / EMM Science Data Center / Thomas Thomopoulos

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Top 10 countries ranked by their years of continuously king-free existence up to the present: San Marino: 1725 Iceland: 1096 Switzerland: 735 United States: 250 Haiti: 222 Liberia: 179 Dominican Republic: 182 El Salvador: 185 Costa Rica: 178 Guatemala: 187

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Great info graphic about the 3 Viking Lander life detection experiments as centerfold in National Geographic January 1977 :) The trinity: Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR), Labeled Release Experiment (LR), Gas Exchange Experiment (GEX). Get an old original edition! Great gift for astrobiologists!

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Another "poppy seeds" rock on Mars, shortly before the Cheyava Falls site where a few days later the one combined with "leopard spots" was found. The mineral appears to be highly UV absorbent as only in the night images under UV + white LEDs the tiny black spots are clearly visible ...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

As above so below, the Perseverance Rover tracks are visible. 1900 Mars days (sols) now on the surface yesterday, 24 June 2026! 2nd photo: rover from 300 km above. Only possible with a clear atmosphere, like the sky seen from ground also shows. 📷 areo.info/mars20 , jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia26...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Dust Donuts on Mars: Still unexplained. A recent simple experiments on Earth failed to produce them by exposing a strong magnet to partly magnetic mineral dust. Video: youtube.com/watch?v=7Yv_... Color image from areo.info/mars20 (yesterday sol 1896)

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

The next visual light space telescope in the style of the Hubble Space Telescope with wavelength bands from UV to near IR could be @schmidtsciences.bsky.social Lazuli, planned launch 2028! 📷 from "The Lazuli Space Observatory: Architecture & Capabilities" 2026-01-05 arxiv.org/abs/2601.02556

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Apollo 17 astronaut, and former Senator, Harrison "Jack" Schmitt (90) yesterday at the National Space Society's ISDC 2026 conference in McLean in an interview with Pascal Lee and Rod Pyle and later as speaker at the dinner. My notes of his most remarkable statements...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

The early sols 31 - 46 in March 2021: Ingenuity Helicopter holding with its "arms" on the rover and feet dangling above the ground before the drop from Perseverance Rover. Future archeologists will wonder: What was hidden inside the violin case found empty on Mars? 📷 areo.info

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Also on Android my areoHDR app now provides access to all sols (days on Mars) since landing in 2021, by subscribing in the app. That makes the flight images from Ingenuity now available, early days during the helicopter deployment and a clean sand-free Perseverance Rover deck...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Bill Anders, Apollo 8 NASA Astronaut, active pilot at age 90 in his T-34, remembers the total blackness of the Moon against the stars during the few minutes on each orbit on Dec. 24, 1968, when they were out of sight from Earth & Sun. 📷 youtu.be/NHVqKgzIDdg?... , honeysucklecreek.net/msfn_mission...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

All lit on the booster and Starship flight 12 reached space again! 📷 spacex.com/launches/sta... and NSF channel on youtube with more camera angles: www.youtube.com/live/UfQHy4m...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Purple glaze on rocks on Mars was seen since landing by Perseverance Rover throughout its whole trip of 42 km now. This one from today missions day 1867. A rock wreckage can be seen in the distance. More images from that day: areo.info/mars20/ecams...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Another rock on Mars which appears to be sticky wet after being tilted out of the ground by the rover driving over it. But as Mars Guy on youtu.be/h5chcA483Iw explains, also other possible explanations exists. More images from that mission day 1093 (2024-03-17): areo.info/mars20/ecams...

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Holger Isenberg @areoinfo.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Unsolved physic mystery of the day: Is GPS really applying compensation of effects described by the general relativity theory? The Wikipedia article about it struggles since years to add a reliable source to verify that claim. Currently they just added a popular science magazine article...

en.wikipedia.org

Global Positioning System - Wikipedia

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