Niu Leaves the Tropics
On Tuesday 5/20/08, Niu officially left the tropics, crossing over the Tropic of Cancer at about 23.5 degrees north latitude. In the “tropics” (between 23.5 degrees south and 23.5 degrees north latitude), the sun reaches its “zenith” in the sky (the highest point, or “straight up”). This occurs twice during the year in the tropics, ...
Read moreExplaining the Point Clustering
You may wonder why sometimes Niu’s coordinates are all clustered together and then suddenly they jump a great distance. For those who read my previous blog on “The Accuracy of Niu’s Coordinates”, you likely know the answer. For those who didn’t read it, here’s the short summary. When GPS satellites aren’t available, we use an ...
Read moreAccuracy of Niu’s Coordinates
People often ask us about the accuracy of Niu’s plotted coordinates. This is a great question with a very lengthy answer. I’ll give you the short version and some places to go if you’re curious about the longer version. Believe it or not, as long as this is, this is the short version! Read more ...
Read moreA Leaf on the Wind
For those of on living on Oahu (or anywhere in the islands) it isn’t exactly news that the trade winds are not blowing as they normally do. A large cloud of VOG (volcanic smog from Kilauea on the Big Island) has been hovering over the island for the past several days, and with the currents ...
Read moreTracking Niu
The Niu is currently moving North and West, past the island of Kauai and out toward the Northwest Hawaiian Islands (NWHI). Some of you might have noticed that the number of position reports has gone down since the day of the launch. In order to conserve power, Archinoetics’ engineers have turned down the frequency of ...
Read more
