Optical 25 Sept 2010 Part 1

grr@telkomsa.net

Observations 25 SEPT 2010
---------------------------------------

The 10 year old homemade CoSatrak system has now been replaced by
a commercial NexGen GOTO mount. This has the ability to attach
different aperture telescopes easily to the mount which is capable
of carrying up to an 8 inch short focus reflector. I currently
have three telescopes that can be used - 4 inch f/5 Skywatcher
refractor, Celestron 5 inch f/5 reflector and Celestron 6 inch f/5
reflector.

Todays system used the 4 inch refractor.

The new mount cannot do everything that CoSaTrak can do so CoSatrak
will be kept operational for use as required. The two systems are
totally independent , on different poles in the back yard and the
new location gives me better coverage of the Clarke belt.

Meade DSI Pro II Monochrome CCD camera without filters.
using integration times of 5 sec min to 25 seconds maximum
depending on brightness of sky in particular area.No image
processing done, but some done automatically in the auto reduction
software.

Used with 4 inch SKYWATCHER refractor- model 1025 - fitted with home
made focal reducer to give an f/2.56 system. Image scale is 6.56 arc
sec/pixel and field of view 84.8 x 63.2 arc minutes. Shows 15th
magnitude stars in real time with reasonably good conditions.

Exposure time to nearest second inserted into image FITS header
from PC clock which is automatically checked every minute against
GPS signal.

Site 0433 : Longitude 18.51294 deg East, Latitude -33.94058 deg,
Elevation 10 metres-situated in Pinelands (Cape Town),South Africa

For CLASSFD.TLE:
------------------------
AEHF 1
36868 10 039A   0433 G 20100925180123000 16 15 2114153+085939 58
36868 10 039A   0433 G 20100925180411000 16 15 2114589+090414 28
36868 10 039A   0433 G 20100925180719000 16 15 2116017+090850 68
36868 10 039A   0433 G 20100925180812000 16 15 2116182+091010 98
36868 10 039A   0433 G 20100925180916000 16 15 2116370+091155 58
36868 10 039A   0433 G 20100925181024000 16 15 2116567+091339 48  +132 03
AEHF 1 Rocket
36869 10 039B   0433 G 20100925181543000 16 15 2122168+104044 28  +106 01
36869 10 039B   0433 G 20100925181721000 16 15 2122376+104340 18  +103 00
36869 10 039B   0433 G 20100925181829000 16 15 2122523+104541 28
36869 10 039B   0433 G 20100925181908000 16 15 2123011+104651 28
36869 10 039B   0433 G 20100925181945000 16 15 2123087+104759 28

Notes:
---------

(1) First try of new system so a few minor problems to be resolved.
(2) AEHF1 remains a fairly difficult object because the track
    orientation is quite similar to the trailed stars so is sometimes
    a bit difficult to find the trail, especially in a crowded bit of
    sky. It is still variable but producing irregular short flashes,
    the brightest around mag +8 but satellite mostly at around mag +13
    as satellite range was 51000 kilometres. The rocket is much easier
    and also variable.

(2) LOTS more observations still to come - hopefully today.

Cheers
Greg

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