Space station 'naut supplies Reg with overhead snap of Vulture Central We've all seen photos of London before, but this one was snapped from 250 miles above the Earth's surface by astronaut Chris Hadfield, who is hurtling round and round the planet aboard the International Space Station at the moment. This is what London looks like from the station. Showing the metropolis at night the orbital …
It's the Tardis materialising at various points in its own timestream, but simultaneously relative to us.
If you look at the full resolution image, you can see Troughton & Zoe browsing rubber cat suits in a Soho shop whilst Colin Baker is embarrassing Perry in Speakers' Corner by heckling the lunatics.
Meanwhile, in the south, you'll notice Ace setting light to a furniture store during the Croydon riots, much to the consternation of McCoy, who only took her there to help choose a new armchair for his recently redesigned console room. Immediately after that, he dumped her back in Perivale and went to John Lewis instead, leading us nicely into the TV movie.
It's all on Wikipedia.
@Mike
>Chip on your shoulder much
I doubt it, I lived for there for a few years.
Lets have a quick look at the word history.
"The study of past events, particularly in human affairs".
The "People" are what create history. London is what it is because of the "People" that live there, the City itself is just another city. it's the same for all of the cities in the world.
At the same time you can argue the people are who they are because of where they live, all cities are to some extent unique in their location. London's location allowed it to become a great trading centre by dint of the river Thames, this trade led to much of the history that the people of London created. E.g. the East India Company, the Hudson Bay Company etc. which then helped shape North America and the Indian Sub-Continent.
If they'd lived in Madrid it's less likely they would have traded as it was poorly located for that not being on a major waterway. And although Spain had an empire there was less of a trade aspect to it and more of an 'invade the place and take the gold' approach.
Not benevolent societies no, trading companies, e.g 'we'll give you these nice wool blankets in exchange for some of those beaver pelts and maybe syphilis'. As opposed to 'show us the city of gold or we kill you, oh and have syphilis on the house'.
You do get what the word trade means don't you?
I'm not saying the distinction was that clear cut but certainly the trading companies from the UK were more interested in the trade aspect than the various expeditions sent from Spain.
And I say this as somebody who owns his own house somewhere on that photo, has lived there for eight years or so now and will continue to do so for the forseeable.
It's not a bad city, I certainly have no major problems with it, but as major international cities go it's pretty much an also-ran IMHO. Most of the people who live here and love it so much haven't traveled enough to experience proper cities, so spend most of their lives with their heads rammed firmly up London's arse. Don't get me wrong it's not bad - it's just not that amazing either!
But even just considered as a city, London has a great deal of history. Its the formost city in Europe (in my obviously unbiased opinion...). Hell its been around twice as long as there has been a country of England.
I can understand why people get annoyed at London-centric views, but I think you've fallen into the trap of dismissing it to much. I might have made that point a little less snarkily however - not enough cofee for 9:30am.
I have a hughe disdain for light pollution. Us skywatchers loath it, and I have to travel a significant distant to get some view on Andromeda. No backward watching for me :(...
I think its mostly skywatchers though, never saw many environmental activists going after the light, they have more important priorities.
I think you are correct it is mostly skywatchers who complain about the light pollution. Nobody bothers to look at the sky anymore. Your point about the environmental activists is funny though, a huge amount of electricity is needed to light up all the bulbs and if they could get rid of them (or at least a lot of them) it would probably do more towards their goals than anything they are doing now.
Of course you'll have the people who are afraid of the dark coming out of the woodwork claiming that lights keep them safe.
Sounds like Ray Bradbury - "Fahrenheit 451".....
"I think you are correct it is mostly skywatchers who complain about the light pollution. Nobody bothers to look at the sky anymore. Your point about the environmental activists is funny though, a huge amount of electricity is needed to light up all the bulbs and if they could get rid of them (or at least a lot of them) it would probably do more towards their goals than anything they are doing now."
There's even some sort of 'turn of your lights' day if I recall. I do remember seeing a very informative video on light pollution, energy use etc made by a local skywatchers group at a uni. They made it for the board of directors with the argument that there was too much light on the campus. It made a good point about costs though. Bloody expensive lighting up the local neighbourhood, especially without any use 99% of the time. And yes, I know I spend a part of almost each night outside.
Sounds like a nice idea, but I hope he takes his other expedition members into account and doesn't overdo it. cooped up in a cramped space station with a wannabe crooner for several months? There's definite potential for his guitar to 'fall' and break.*
*Yes, even in zero g. Call it a spatial anomaly if you want to.
Considering the man's rather appalling taste in music as evidenced by his playlist, you should be thankful there's no Justin Bieber or Britney Spears in there.
Regarding the first album recorded in space, that honour was historically supposed to go to Jean-Michel Jarre, with his album "Rendezvous", of which the final part (the saxophone solo) was intended to be played by astronaut Ron McNair while in orbit aboard the space shuttle back in 1986. Except that the space shuttle in question was the Challenger...
Ha, you reminded of when I was a kid back in the 70s and 80s. I used to imagine that my city (Adelaide) was a galaxy and that my parents' car (or my pushbike) was a spaceship, with the streetlights representing stars and the nearby houses being the planets that orbited them. The car was of course capable of Warp 9, while my poor little pushbike was only good for Warp 3 or thereabouts. Sometimes we'd go up to Mt Lofty, where you used to have an awesome view of the whole city (they close the lookout at night these days, sadly), and it certainly looked like a galaxy then to my young eyes!
"Vulture Central" - completely lost on any American viewing this - never heard of it before. Completely confused me when it turned out to be London. Never in 66 years have I heard the phrase "Vulture Central" so I thought you might like to know so that next time your headline might be a little less obscure to those outside of the 'know'
As for the comments on light pollution, well it's only a problem when you're trying to see the stars, isn't it. Seems to me since they're always there, one could plan a viewing in a non-light-polluted area. To complain that you can't see the stars whenever you want to is just silly. It's a lot worse over here, the stars are barely visible even in the rural areas; may I suggest Celestia or Stellarium, both freeware programs that will show you ALL the stars, even when the Sun is out!
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