I spent today, the first of the New Year, flipping through the recent photography issue of BorderCrossings and a 2006 astronomy issue of National Geographic.

I reckoned that technology was getting to the point where I could launch a global imaging satellite of my own and take astro-shots, so I started Googling around.

Interorbital Systems, to take the first example I ran across, plans on conducting personal satellite launches later this year for about USD 8,000. I suspect that for about CAD 20,000 one could put up a decent imaging sat, possibly running Linux, and set up a ground station for communicating with it.