Observations 09 Jan 2006:
--------------------------------
Cosatrak 1 (Computerised satellite Tracking System).
MINTRON low light level CCD surveillance camera (0.005 lux typical
in non integration mode) and 0.00005 lux in STARLIGHT mode with 128
frame integration.
Used with 145mm focal length f/2.5 lens,integrating for 128 frames
which is equivalent to an exposure of 2.56 seconds per image.
Moon bright and always seemed to be where the satellites were.
Site 0433 : Longitude 18.51294 deg East, Latitude 33.94058 deg S,
Elevation 10 metres - situated in Pinelands (Cape Town), South Africa
10502 77 112A 0433 P 20060109195338300 56 15 1436113-823034 39 +085 05
10502 77 112A 0433 P 20060109195402900 56 15 1221046-812950 39 +080 05
10502 77 112A 0433 P 20060109195458800 56 15 0953045-712015 39 +075 05
10502 77 112A 0433 P 20060109195517400 56 15 0934124-663326 39 +070 05
90043 05 835A 0433 P 20060109191111500 56 15 0131306+062725 39 +110 05
91053 05 864A 0433 P 20060109222136200 56 15 0438353+171453 39 +090 05
91053 05 864A 0433 P 20060109222144400 56 15 0438499+170649 39 +090 05
91053 05 864A 0433 P 20060109222154800 56 15 0439039+165539 39 +090 05
91053 05 864A 0433 P 20060109222205200 56 15 0439225+164425 39 +090 05
91053 05 864A 0433 P 20060109222214600 56 15 0439370+163425 39 +090 05
91053 05 864A 0433 P 20060109222225000 56 15 0439562+162317 39 +090 05
91053 05 864A 0433 P 20060109222234200 56 15 0440127+161248 39 +090 05
91053 05 835A 0433 P 20060109222320600 56 15 0441275+152208 39 +089 05
91053 05 835A 0433 P 20060109222323600 56 15 0441357+151821 39 +089 05
27938 03 041B 0433 P 20060109201000600 56 15 0900091+000105 39 +095 05
90044 05 859A 0433 P 20060109191407700 56 15 0602347-174111 39 +050 05
90044 05 859A 0433 P 20060109191438700 56 15 0616305-203958 39 +050 05
90044 05 859A 0433 P 20060109191504700 56 15 0628514-230804 39 +050 05
Notes:
----------
(1) Main purpose of tracking session was to test out a 400mm telephoto
lens equipped with a 1.7x teleconverter to reduce the focal length
to around 200 mm. After only a few observations it was obvious that
whilst the images looked reasonable, the magnitude penetration was
not as good as my usual 145mm lens so the optics on the ccd camera
were changed back to the usual 145mm lens and the 400mm lens will
now be retired - will make a nice short focus refractor.
(2) After tracking for nearly 4 hours there was a brief power failure-
and the DVD recorder recorded NOTHING so all the dvd data was lost.
I was not amused!
(3) Fortunately I was testing two new pieces of software (K3CCDTOOLS
and SELENE) and experimenting with dark frames and flat fields and
had captured several short AVI files as well as a few BMP images.
From this I was able to salvage the above observations and in the
process found that it was quicker to get positional data this way
than hunt through a DVD recording so my recording technique will
probably change.
(4) USA129 was running very close to the predicted time so has not
moved yet - unfortunately no recording was made of this satellite
so I will observe again tonight. No use commenting on the other
15 satellites tracked as the data is lost :-))
Cheers
Greg
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