Hi all
Tried my hand at something unusual, imaging geostationary comm sats.
I used Satbuster http://www.satbuster.com/ to get its position from Newcastle, and used the orbital elements from here http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/
Then used Star Atlas pro to work out where it is, having to keep updating the map as the earth rotates.
Sat camera with 50mm f1.8 lens on tripod, stopped down to f3.5 then took a 4 min exposure, subtracted a dark, and went over it carefully so as not to confuse hot pixels with geo stationary satellites.
Heres a crop and a downsized full image, with obvious low orbit bright satelite trail
Scott
Thanks
years ago an old astronomy mate from Coonabarabran had a go with film and could see a few faint dots, and recently the Newcastle Space Frontier Society had a talk about the new big comsats that have gone up, I thought Id be able to capture them No guiding or tracking necessary either
Scott
Fantastic results – well done and thanks for posting the images. I've often thought of attempting this but never got my act together - you've inspired me to give it a go.
I have thought of trying to image satellites, but I've complicated the issue of trying to use the scope to resolve detail and haven't succeeded... Nice grass roots approach and well done! Himawari 6 (weather satellite that covers us) was my preferred target...
My guess is (based on your ID of Optus B3) the "another geostat satellite" to the left is JCSAT 4, and the slow moving one above right is Hellas Sat 1 (DFS 3).
Hellas Sat 1's orbit is inclined at 4.561 degrees so that might account for the slow movement you've observed.
Optus B3's orbit is only inclined at 0.009 degrees, and JCSAT 4 is only 0.021 degrees.
Can you find JCSAT 8 further to the right from Optus B3 in your original image? My guess is it could in the FOV...
Heres a crop of the right hand side of the image, yes theres 2 more faint ones, one of these might be JCSAT 8
Id like to try and image one through the big scope but its permanent mount is hidden from that low to the north by the house, I believe the Comm Sats arent perfectly fixed but wander slightly due to tugs from the sun and moon.
I'm just back from Sydney, and ran Orbitron again to look for the other satellites. They move a lot more than I expected (those whose orbits are inclined a little bit more anyway). But if a set the time right, we should be able to identify them!
I downloaded your full image and marked all the potential satellites and numbered them (including hot pixels). Starting from Optus B3, I tried several combinations, but things don't give a good correlation for me... I even loaded the image into OziExplorer and calibrated it as a map with AZM = long and Elev = lat (north).
I'm not sure if the problem is that I've updated the TLEs in Orbitron... I'm not sure how well the TLEs extrapolate backwards . Anyway it has been an interesting exercise, and in case anyone else would like to have a go I've uploaded your image with my arrows and numbers on it to the upload area:
For the sake of comparison, here's my best guess of which satellite is which:
1. Optus B3
2. JCSAT 4
3. IntelSat 602
16. Optus B1
18. Hellas Sat 1 (DFS 3)
4,5,6,7,8,14, 15, 17, 26, 27, 29. Hot pixels
It's overcast and drizzly here so this is me mowing the lawn!
Al.
Last edited by sheeny; 07-01-2007 at 12:03 PM.
Reason: Correct the URL - missing u
. Anyway it has been an interesting exercise, and in case anyone else would like to have a go I've uploaded your image with my arrows and numbers on it to the upload area:
