Observations 13 May 2007: ------------------------------------ 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 50mm focal length f/1.8 lens,integrating for 128 frames which is equivalent to a max exposure of 2.52 seconds per image but since I was electronic light control exposure duration under cloudy conditions can be MUCH less.. Site 0433 : Longitude 18.51294 deg East, Latitude 33.94058 deg S, Elevation 10 metres - situated in Pinelands (Cape Town), South Africa 91117 07 631A 0433 T 20070513171850300 56 15 1130520+261746 39 +105 05 91117 07 631A 0433 T 20070513171932900 56 15 1133080+264839 39 +105 05 91117 07 631A 0433 T 20070513172043400 56 15 1136470+273712 39 +105 05 Notes: ------- Conditions terrible, virtually solid cloud. Tracked blind on the provisional elements kindly supplied by Mike McCants and Scott Campbell as soon as it was dark enough in the hopes that somewhere along the pass there would be a small gap in the clouds. Only towards the end of the pass the cloud broke up a little but nothing was seen of the satellite in real time as the camera was not able to integrate properly due to the continuously changing cloud background. As tonight looks like a wash out again due to predicted rain I went through the DVD recording today in the hopes of being able to perhaps find something by integrating in software. Through clouds I found three possible images which I do not think are hot spots or dead pixels. These were measured and reported as above. I then added Teds latest orbit and found that the positions lay very slightly off his predicted track and matched his times. This may just be coincidence but seems a little too good to be that so the observations are hereby reported but I must stress that in "normal" circumstances I would be reluctant to use the observations as I was really pushing the integrations to the limit and images looked terrible. Cheers Greg ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon May 14 2007 - 05:01:27 EDT