At 16:41 3/06/03, Josef Huber-isstracking.de wrote: >Hi all > >does anybody have the tle elements from the mars express who launched yesterday? >Is the flight to mars visible all the time at the northern hemisphere? What about the >magnitude >at the start and how change the visible magnitude to the flight to the mars (1/R^2). Is >it possible with CCD camera or mintron video camera to observe the whole flight. How >far does the tle elements function.Are tle elements only for objects arround the earth? >I hope we all can observe this satellite. > >Have a nice day > >Josef Huber >Munich Public Star Observatory Josef, all man-made objects are far to small a surface area to track visually beyond 1 million Km range 1. There will be no TLEs since it was only temporarily in Earth orbit. 2. It has a catalog number, as can be seen from the OIG reply 27816 MARS EXPRESS No TLE found. 27817 FREGAT D/S R/B No TLE found. 3.By now its quite likely beyond the lunar distance and something like mag 20-21 already, It will be mag 26-27 by the time of the mars encounter. So following it up is quite impractical unless you can sweet talk the controllers into a sunglint off the solar panels, a procedure done on NEAR. Then Gordon Garradd ( MPC 422) imaged it at 32 million Km with a 0.5m newtonian and a CCD. 4. TLE models only work in elliptical and circular earth orbits, and I suspect the original specifications would have imagined any use much beyond GEO . 5. Knowing the launch time and the arrival time you can calculate an approximate heliocentric orbit, because you have 2 positions and the time between them. Its approximate because the actual trajectory has some correction manouvers as well, but it should show dstances from Earth & Mars to 3 figures. Tony Beresford T ----------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from SeeSat-L, send a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@satobs.org List archived at http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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