Canterbury Mornings

NASA's flying observatory will begin its winter missions from Christchurch today.Sofia is a former Boeing Passenger plane decked out with a giant telescope - and manned by scientists, astronomers, mechanics and technicians.It's been visiting Christchurch for the past five years.Deployment Manager Ed Harmon told Chris Lynch they'll head out around 8 o'clock tonight and be back around 4am for the first trip of their seven week programme.This time around they're looking at our neighbouring galaxy The Large Magellanic Cloud, the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy, and Saturn's moon.