Tonight I did some more tests using my Sony DV camera. My neck still hurts from trying to look through the binoculars on my too short of a tripod. I set the DV camera to look at Spica and waited for a NOSS trio to drift by that star. As the moment neared for the pass I looked through my night scope and my binoculars but saw nothing. I then reviewed the tape I shot using the "super night shot" mode and to my surprise I could just barely see the three pass by! Each satellite was seen as a faint short streak every time a new frame advanced. I also taped the flashing EGP using the same mode. It was easy to see but, because of the choppy nature of the method of using 1/4 second exposures I cannot get a realistic example of the pattern of flashes. I noticed that the so-called "color night shutter" looks like it has the same magnitude ability as the super night shot (not sure yet however) but the color slow shutter looked a lot less noisy. The wood plank setup I constructed which holds a night scope, a pair of 7 x 35 binoculars and the DV camera all in alignment really works well when it comes to finding a particular point in the sky with the DV camera. I found that I could use the binocs to place the DV camera at a point ahead of where a satellite was to drift through. Without the setup I made I would virtually have no chance of doing that. For instance, tonight I was taping Envisat and I kept using the binocs to get ahead of it. Eventually it was moving so slowly that I could easily use only the camera viewfinder to keep track of it. At the very end of that observation I could still see it (although barely) in the camera viewfinder but not at all in either the 7 x 35 binoculars nor the night vision scope. I also used the binoculars to track the ISS while I video taped it. Much to my disappointment I didn't manage to see Superbird A however. Maybe next time. Tom Iowa USA ..... ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jun 05 2003 - 01:30:18 EDT