Thousands come to watch the "Buran" prototype travel on the river Rhine

By now it has became a "must" for space afficionados in Germany: Countless thousands are lining up on the banks of the river Rhine to see the Buran prototype make a pass enroute to a museum in Speyer. You can see aerial views of the convoy in the Netherlands, pictures in Düsseldorf and approaching Cologne (one more), Buran in Cologne late on April 8 (more, more, more; also a video and another one), the convoy in Bonn on April 9 (another pic), in Königswinter (close to where this blogger watched) and in Koblenz. Tons of images have been collected by a local paper, more picture collections are growing here, here, here and here. There are reports from TV (with another video clip) and a paper - and in an interview the director of the museum where Buran is heading wonders whether he'll also get one of the U.S. orbiters ...

In other news here are images of the crescent Moon 1 1/2 days old on the 7th (more images) and 2 1/2 days old; other images from the 8th include the Plejades: The farther west the images were taken, the closer the Moon came to the cluster. • A very different moon in striking color and detail: Here is how the MRO sees Phobos, one of the two little ones of Mars!