North and South

[leon]

Hi All.

Now I should probably know this, but I thought i might just ask anyway.

I have my set-up aligned to the SCP, and when i send it to park home, it slews, and stops itself pointing to the SCP, with the counter weight down etc.

This is where it stays until it fires up again.

Anyway, a couple of nights ago i decide to just look through the scope with a 17mm EP, and see how close i was to the actual pole, and to see if i could see Sigma Octans etc.

While i was doing this a satelite passed through the center of the EP, on more than one occasion.

The question I want to ask is this, is there a satelite that goes around the poles from north to south.


Cheers Leon

[ballaratdragons]

Yep Leon, quite a few.

The popular satellite NOOA (spelling?) is one of them.

[RAJAH235]

Leon, why not check out > www.heavens-above.com ?
Get pretty much all the satellite answers there.
Regs, Laurie..

[leon]

Thanks Ken, didn't realise that there were a couple of them, thanks.

Leon

[Dennis]

Hi Leon, from a Google search:

A polar orbit is an orbit where the satellite travels in a North to South direction instead of the common West to East orbit.

Because the earth spins in an Easterly direction, a polar orbit will eventually cover every possible combination of latitude and longitude.

This makes polar orbits very useful for satellites which monitor the earth, such as weather satellites and geographical survey satellites.

Cheers

Dennis

PS – See also: http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/wlopolar.html

[acropolite]

FWIW the NOAA polar orbiting satellites are used to image in visible and infra-red primarily for weather. I'm not sure if they are still functional but they broadcast on VHF and can be monitored as they go overhead. There have been quite a few articles written and software packages used to decode the output from the satellites and produce images if you're that way inclined.