Go Back   IceInSpace > Images > Solar System

Reply
 
Thread Tools Rating: Thread Rating: 2 votes, 5.00 average.
  #1  
Old 27-03-2009, 02:48 PM
Dennis
Dazzled by the Cosmos.

Dennis is offline
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Brisbane
Posts: 11,704
Near Earth Asteroid 2009 FD - whilst you were sleeping!

Space, what a busy place! Whilst grabbing some 60 second exposures of Asteroid 2009 FD on its 1.6LD race-by-rendezvous with our Earth environment, I also recorded 3 even faster moving objects, their ghostly trails appearing as fleeting tracks on my CCD camera.

The “short dashes” are the path of Asteroid 2009 FD, each “dash” being a 60 second exposure. The longer trails are probably satellites, as their paths are “punctuated” by the download time of each frame. And I thought we lived in a quiet neighbourhood! I felt privileged to be outside watching all the early morning action, whilst all around me, everyone lay sound asleep.

Brisbane, Qld, Australia, 27th March 2009
01:41am to 02:17am AEST (UT+10)
Vixen ED102mm F9 refractor
SBIG ST7 CCD camera, 18x60 sec exposures

FOV 25’ 45” x 17’ 09” at an image scale of 2.02 arcsec/pixel

Cheers

Dennis

PS – I have an animation but I can’t upload it, as our desktop PC is dead and I’m working on a older laptop with a very limited set of software tools!

EDIT:
Hah – managed to navigate to our backups on the network storage drive and located my ftp application, installation instructions and upload instructions! Oh the joy of backups when your computer dies on you!

WARNING: 1.0MB file. 2009FD animation
Attached Thumbnails
Click for full-size image (NEO 2009_FD Text.jpg)
70.1 KB196 views

Last edited by Dennis; 05-04-2009 at 06:06 PM. Reason: Animation updated with version that includes satellite labels.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 27-03-2009, 03:08 PM
h0ughy's Avatar
h0ughy (David)
Moderator

h0ughy is offline
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: NEWCASTLE NSW Australia
Posts: 33,156
confusing but great, pretty busy up there.
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 27-03-2009, 03:24 PM
iceman's Avatar
iceman (Mike)
Sir Post a Lot!

iceman is offline
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Gosford, NSW, Australia
Posts: 36,760
Wow Dennis, that's very cool. Excellent effort and animation.
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 27-03-2009, 03:28 PM
troypiggo's Avatar
troypiggo (Troy)
Bust Duster

troypiggo is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Posts: 4,846
The animation is much less confusing than the jpg. Really cool.

Am I right - when the slow asteroid is top left near the end of the animation, it looks like it's smashing into something. 2 bits come off in either direction?
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 27-03-2009, 03:53 PM
Quark's Avatar
Quark (Trevor)
Registered User

Quark is offline
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Broken Hill NSW Australia
Posts: 4,104
Hi Dennis,
Like the animation, looks like you need air, or should that be space, traffic control in your region.

Regards
Trevor
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 27-03-2009, 03:55 PM
StephenM's Avatar
StephenM (Stephen)
Registered User

StephenM is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Brisbane
Posts: 2,399
Great animation Dennis! Well done.

Cheers,
Stephen
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 27-03-2009, 04:50 PM
deadsimple's Avatar
deadsimple (Ash)
Registered User

deadsimple is offline
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Brisbane
Posts: 180
Love the animation, well done!
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 27-03-2009, 05:36 PM
sheeny's Avatar
sheeny (Al)
Spam Hunter

sheeny is offline
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Oberon NSW
Posts: 14,287
Very cool, Dennis!

Quote:
Originally Posted by troypiggo View Post
The animation is much less confusing than the jpg. Really cool.

Am I right - when the slow asteroid is top left near the end of the animation, it looks like it's smashing into something. 2 bits come off in either direction?
It's a very interesting artifact! I dunno though whether it's the tail end of a collision flash, but the "fragments" rapidly disappear. Maybe its a Pico or Femto lensing event!???

Al.
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 27-03-2009, 06:15 PM
Dennis
Dazzled by the Cosmos.

Dennis is offline
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Brisbane
Posts: 11,704
Quote:
Originally Posted by troypiggo View Post
The animation is much less confusing than the jpg. Really cool.

Am I right - when the slow asteroid is top left near the end of the animation, it looks like it's smashing into something. 2 bits come off in either direction?
Hi Troy

That’s probably a cosmic ray strike on that one particular frame. As our main PC is currently being re-built, I have had to resort to using use some older software tools on an older PC, so I haven’t been able to clean up the images to remove these artifacts!

Cheers

Dennis
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old 27-03-2009, 07:05 PM
[1ponders]'s Avatar
[1ponders] (Paul)
Retired, damn no pension

[1ponders] is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Obi Obi, Qld
Posts: 18,778
Dennis Simmons, Asteroid Hunter Extraordinaire!! You are the Man! Dennis.
Reply With Quote
  #11  
Old 27-03-2009, 07:19 PM
Dennis
Dazzled by the Cosmos.

Dennis is offline
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Brisbane
Posts: 11,704
Thanks for all your nice comments and feed back – they leave a nice glow after a hard nights work!

The (presumed) satellite trails had me floored when each image downloaded, taking approx 18 secs as it is the older parallel camera. I initially thought, “what the!!!!” , believing that the camera had developed a fault. I reckon the trails are too regular and parallel to be meteors?

‘Twas almost a night that didn’t happen! Thin bands of cloud kept coming through, ruining 2 out of the 3 sequences I managed to grab. In the best sequence above, frame 12 is missing due cloud interruption.

Having an older PC with older apps was also quite frustrating, but hey, if these are my only worries in life, then I am a lucky man indeed!

Cheers

Dennis
Reply With Quote
  #12  
Old 27-03-2009, 07:22 PM
Dennis
Dazzled by the Cosmos.

Dennis is offline
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Brisbane
Posts: 11,704
Quote:
Originally Posted by sheeny View Post
Maybe its a Pico or Femto lensing event!???
Al.
You sir, are a cheeky man! Not to mention clever, to be even able to write that stuff!

Cheers

Dennis
Reply With Quote
  #13  
Old 27-03-2009, 07:41 PM
h0ughy's Avatar
h0ughy (David)
Moderator

h0ughy is offline
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: NEWCASTLE NSW Australia
Posts: 33,156
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dennis View Post
You sir, are a cheeky man! Not to mention clever, to be even able to write that stuff!

Cheers

Dennis
Ah yes it take a cleverer man to touche like that after hearing the story behind the image you sir are a living wonder.

Excellent Stuff Dennis - hopefully it will inspire others to follow your lead
Reply With Quote
  #14  
Old 27-03-2009, 08:52 PM
jjjnettie's Avatar
jjjnettie (Jeanette)
Registered User

jjjnettie is offline
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Monto
Posts: 16,738
Dennis,
Amazing work as always.
Reply With Quote
  #15  
Old 30-03-2009, 09:42 AM
DaveGee's Avatar
DaveGee (Dave Gault)
Occultation Observer

DaveGee is offline
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Blue Mountains, Australia
Posts: 232
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dennis View Post
Space, what a busy place!
Hi Dennis, space is indeed a busy place, at least in the solar system and environs.

This thread is timely as there is exciting developments in the NEA watch network of observers brought about by the recent passage of 2009 DD45, a 40-60m rock that was only discovered on 27th February by Rob McNaught and passed us by on the 2nd March at an altitude of 63,000km above Tahiti.

The passage was observed by two Australian observers; Dave Herald of Canberra and Hristo Pavlov of Epping. Dave's video can be viewed here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RKKgMDK7A4

Producing good astrometry for these fast moving (>100"/minute) is very difficult because there is not a good reliable way to tell the time of exposure of normal CCD images, accurate to 0.1 second, however these images were taken using intergrating video cameras (WAT-120N+s) in both cases AND each frame was time stamped with GPS Video Time Inserters (KIWI OSDs), accurate to 0.001seconds.

The upshot of all this is that VERY good astrometry of the asteroid was produced and submitted to the Minor Planet Centre (MPC). The MPC in turn couldn't handle the accuracy of the time base and had to change their procedures to properly record the astrometry submitted. The upshot of all this is that for very fast movers, video techniques will probably be the prefered method of observation.

Dave Herald and others are working with the MPC to produce a guide for future observations and it is all within the capability of the amateur astronomer. As soon as the guide is finalised and released, I'll post it here.

So, NEA observers wishing to contribute to the observing program should watch this space!
Reply With Quote
  #16  
Old 30-03-2009, 07:49 PM
theodog's Avatar
theodog (Jeff)
Every photon is sacred !

theodog is offline
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Coonabarabran
Posts: 1,069
Just watched the animation Dennis,

Simply stunning.
Reply With Quote
  #17  
Old 30-03-2009, 09:00 PM
RobF's Avatar
RobF (Rob)
Mostly harmless...

RobF is offline
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Posts: 5,716
Original, entertaining and informative Dennis.
Thanks for the effort.

Reply With Quote
  #18  
Old 03-04-2009, 10:51 PM
Jen's Avatar
Jen
Moving to Pandora

Jen is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Swan Hill
Posts: 7,095
Well done Dennis im loving the animation
Reply With Quote
  #19  
Old 05-04-2009, 06:16 PM
Dennis
Dazzled by the Cosmos.

Dennis is offline
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Brisbane
Posts: 11,704
New animation; satellites identified.

Thanks to everyone for your nice words of appreciation, they are much valued. Now that our new computer has been commissioned and familiar software re-loaded, I began the hunt for these mysterious trails, assuming them to be satellites due to their parallel tracks and multiple paths recorded on the sub-frames.

Starry Night Pro Plus 6 suggested the following candidate geosynchronous Satellites for the trails in the composite image.

CIEL-2 The Canadian communications satellite Ciel-2 launched on 11th December 2008 from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan atop a Proton-M carrier rocket.
http://www.cielsatellite.ca/satellites.html
http://balita.ph/2008/12/11/canadian...-target-orbit/

NSS-9 Launched on February 12, 2009. NSS-9 at 183° East is a replacement satellite for NSS-5, featuring three C-band beams ideal for government users, broadcasters, carriers and the maritime industry.
http://www.newskies.com/nss9.htm

Echostar 1 An American geostationary communications spacecraft that was launched by a CZ-2E with EPKM upper stage rocket from Xichang Center in Sichuan province, PRC on 28th December 1995.
http://www.tbs-satellite.com/tse/onl...chostar_1.html
http://www.geo-orbit.org/westhemipgs/fecho1specp.html

Starry Night Pro Plus 6
Using Starry Night Pro Plus 6, I plotted the paths of the geosynchronous Satellites then overlaid the ST7 composite image which showed a remarkable correlation between the actual and predicted paths of these 3 geosynchronous satellites, although I had mysteriously missed a 4th, Express-MD1?

SkyTools 3 Pro
I then plotted the trail of 2009 FD using SkyTools 3 Pro and merging the composite ST7 image and the SkyTools screen capture revealed how remarkably accurate SkyTools 3 Pro was in plotting the predicted path of 2009 FD.

Finally, on a roll, I generated another animated gif which on the 1st pass, shows a label free animation of the satellite that more accurately depicts the dynamic nature of the event which then runs on into an animation including labels identifying the 3 satellites.

Updated Animation: WARNING 1.0MB: 2009 FD

Cheers

Dennis
Attached Thumbnails
Click for full-size image (2009-FD-and-Satellites-Text.jpg)
87.6 KB42 views
Click for full-size image (SNP-Screen-Print-1024.jpg)
110.2 KB40 views
Click for full-size image (SNP-Screen-Print-with-image-1024.jpg)
63.2 KB46 views
Click for full-size image (SkyTools-Screen-Copy-2009-FD-Path-1024.jpg)
61.3 KB45 views
Click for full-size image (2009-FD-Image-and-SkyTools-Composite-A-Text-1024.jpg)
115.7 KB30 views
Reply With Quote
  #20  
Old 06-04-2009, 05:49 AM
[1ponders]'s Avatar
[1ponders] (Paul)
Retired, damn no pension

[1ponders] is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Obi Obi, Qld
Posts: 18,778
Blimey Dennis (English colloquialism ), when are you going to start running a few classes on how you put all this together. I know I've sat with you a couple of times while you've outlined it, but a lot of its still double dutch to me. Boy you do a professional job of it.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT +10. The time is now 07:00 AM.

Powered by vBulletin Version 3.8.7 | Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Advertisement
Bintel
Advertisement
Testar
Advertisement