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Old 03-09-2014, 09:44 PM
trickybilly
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Is it possible to track spacecraft?

Last week I have tracked asteroid 16 Psyche on the sky and watched how it moved through the sky as time passed, using theskylive.com's charts. It was almost 10 magnitude - within the power of my telescope. There are spacecrafts listed there too, but their magnitude is "N/A". Is it possible to see some of these http://theskylive.com/spacecraft? I have an 8 inch dob (200/1200).
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Old 03-09-2014, 09:54 PM
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Check out http://heavens-above.com - they have plenty of info about visible satellite passes.
I think it'll be difficult to 'track' most satellites that you'll be able to see as they'll mostly be in quite low orbits. I know some people, Thierry Legault springs to mind, track the ISS and some other sats but it's not easy!
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Old 03-09-2014, 11:31 PM
trickybilly
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I have used a wrong term with "track" maybe. I have a dob with no motor or anything. No automatic tracking just my hands. Fast satellites just run fast through my field of view. I just saw that some spacecrafts move slowly like http://theskylive.com/maven-tracker so I planned to see them (as dots ofc) and see how their dot moves through the sky like the asteroid 16 Psyche did. I see it seems to move faster then Psyche , but not that fast like some turbo satellites on the sky. My question was if these http://theskylive.com/spacecraft are visible through a telescope
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Old 03-09-2014, 11:41 PM
julianh72 (Julian)
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If you have a computerised mount that can slew quickly enough, and can interface to an app such as SkySafari which has a satellite database, and which can control the mount, it is possible to visually track some satellites by choosing it as your target in SkySafari, and then repeatedly tapping the "GoTo" button. In this way, the mount will keep slewing at its highest speed to a moving target.

Start with the telescope pointing in advance to where you will start tracking the satellite when it appears, so you don't have to slew across the whole sky just to be in the right vicinity. Use your widest angle eyepiece until you master the art - it can take a bit of practice to get the tapping timing working well.

EDIT:

I see from your subsequent post that you have an unpowered Dob - that makes it a LOT trickier! You could try using a "PushTo" app such as SkEye to help align your scope to be in the right location when it appears, but I guess you would have to move the telescope manually to keep it in view.

Last edited by julianh72; 03-09-2014 at 11:59 PM.
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Old 04-09-2014, 09:06 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by trickybilly View Post
My question was if these http://theskylive.com/spacecraft are visible through a telescope
That's a good question and I'm not sure how you'd find out the apparent magnitude of spacecraft like Maven. You could try the JPL Solar System Simulator (http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/) but I'm not sure if it'll do what you need.

I thought a good place to start would be to see if one could spot satellites in a geosynchronous Earth orbit and a quick Google found this page:
http://www.satobs.org/geosats.html

While Some of the interplanetary spacecraft will have bigger solar arrays than most of the GEO sats they're so far away that I think they'll be much too faint even to image with big scopes, dark skies, and sensitive CCDs let alone observe through a dob.

Maybe try spotting some GEO sats first and then wait until a Mars, or other outer planet, spacecraft is launched and try and spot it on it's way out but while it's still in Earth's neighbourhood
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Old 04-09-2014, 10:03 AM
julianh72 (Julian)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by trickybilly View Post
There are spacecrafts listed there too, but their magnitude is "N/A". Is it possible to see some of these http://theskylive.com/spacecraft? I have an 8 inch dob (200/1200).
An app like SkySafari will give you the apparent magnitude for the hundreds of satellites in its database, their apparent speed across the sky (degrees per second), and will also highlight those that are currently visible from your location. You can set SkySafari up to show the view some time in the future, so you can do some identification and simulation ahead of your observing session, to identify your best targets in advance, and then head outdoors with a list of satellites and their times and locations to catch them.

If you sort by Visual Magnitude, you should be able to find a few with magnitude bright enough to be visible in your telescope, and you can view their movements in the sky view, so you can see which ones are moving slowly enough for you to be able to have a go at observing them. (If you have a "Field of View" circle set up to match your telescope and eyepiece, it will give you a good simulation of how quickly the satellite would pass across the field of view.)

Hope this helps!
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Old 04-09-2014, 11:27 AM
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I've 'tracked' satellites using the 80mm f5 by hand. Easier with the wide feild of view of course but there isn't much to see, just a bright dot. I have done it in the 10" f5 with a 20mm SV EP, hand pushed but it is not easy but sometimes a bit more detail, eg solar panels can be seen.
Binocs are best for satellites really ... and a sun lounger. You get to see more sporadic meteors that way as well.
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Old 04-09-2014, 11:38 AM
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I think trickybilly means he/she wants to track the position of spacecraft over days/weeks/months and wasn't referring to satellites in orbit around the Earth that would move quite quickly across the sky.
The spacecraft mentioned in that link are all either in orbit around the sun or on an escape trajectory out of the Solar system.
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Old 04-09-2014, 11:44 AM
PeterEde (Peter)
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I used to love sleeping outside as a kid and watch satellites hoot over head. These days I see less by naked eye. But now through the scope I see them pass infront all the time. Is it just they are smaller than in the past or higher or a mix of both.
I have seen hand held shots of the ISS. Not easy to get.
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Old 04-09-2014, 12:20 PM
julianh72 (Julian)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pluto View Post
I think trickybilly means he/she wants to track the position of spacecraft over days/weeks/months and wasn't referring to satellites in orbit around the Earth that would move quite quickly across the sky.
The spacecraft mentioned in that link are all either in orbit around the sun or on an escape trajectory out of the Solar system.
I would think that getting a visual on any spacecraft which is not in Earth orbit would be impossible.

As an example - the first spacecraft on the OP's link http://theskylive.com/spacecraft is the Rosetta spacecraft, which is currently travelling with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which is about 428 million km from Earth.
http://sci.esa.int/where_is_rosetta/

Given that the comet is about 4 km across, and has a visual magnitude of +18.6 as seen from Earth, I don't think you'll have much luck spotting the spacecraft, which measures 32 m from tip to tip of the solar panel array.
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Sp...osetta_orbiter

Considering objects a bit closer to home - the asteroid that the OP mentioned (16 Psyche) is about 253 kilometres across, and is about 263 million km away, giving a Visual Magnitude of +9.9. Again, no man-made object (measured in at most a few tens of metres across) is going to be visible at these sorts of distances.
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Old 04-09-2014, 01:13 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by julianh72 View Post
I would think that getting a visual on any spacecraft which is not in Earth orbit would be impossible.
Agreed, that's why I said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by pluto View Post
While Some of the interplanetary spacecraft will have bigger solar arrays than most of the GEO sats they're so far away that I think they'll be much too faint even to image with big scopes, dark skies, and sensitive CCDs let alone observe through a dob.
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Old 05-09-2014, 05:25 AM
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Short answer then .... 'No'
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Old 05-09-2014, 06:32 PM
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