In October 1957 the Soviet Union launched the first human-made spacecraft, Sputnik I. The USA had already announced that it would be launching a satellite and so existing plans for an elaborate device were quickly ditched by the Soviets to get something up in space first. Sputnik was simply aRead more

From 1956 artist and photographer Eric Lee-Johnson began photographing the night sky near his Northland home of Waimamaku. He generally used time exposures, where the shutter is held open from anywhere between seconds to hours. With longer exposures the stars show up as trails formed by the rotating motion ofRead more