The laser's aboard ICESat are life limited items and their power diminishes with time. The green channel currently operating on ICESat is now rather dim and reportedly running at something like only 10% of new. I believe one would have to be hit directly by a laser spot at this low power to see even a brief green twinkle. The spot size is on the order of 100 meters in diameter and reliably predicting a satellite's position to within 100 meters from elements available on the net is probably not possible. I am saving my late night trips to chase laser beams from space for Calipso. A brand new laser would be worth seeing. Gregg Hendry ************************************* Subject: RE: ICESAT laser status? Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 16:05:09 +0000 [View Source] Kevin Fetter wrote The green and infra-red laser is nadir pointing. This means it point towards the earth, so if the satellite is at the zenith, you should in theory see green laser light. You have to be close to the satellite ground track, to see direct laser light. Not sure how far off track you can be, before you don't see reflected laser light off the stuff in the air. The laser fires 40 times a second. Kevin ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 17 2006 - 21:43:19 EST