Re: Detailed Telescope Set Up Directions For Tracking?

Colleagues -

Marco makes an important point that I should have included in my earlier note.

Dan Roy and I are working to get the ability to take precise observations, using prediction software and his mount. That is where I would like help - how to get that working. 

We may or may not put a telescope on the mount, I would like to try taking images with my
normal Sony DSLR camera (DSC H300) - mounted on the tripod. But since we have an 8 inch and I'd
 like to get some images of satellites near apogee...

Once we have some usable images I am gonna try to put them into astrometry software to produce
observations, I have not ever done that before. But we are doing this one step at a time. 

I also need a link to the "get clear skies" web page, we don't see those much here.

Charles

> On September 10, 2018 at 10:20 AM Marco Langbroek <marco_at_langbroek.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> Op 10-9-2018 om 17:52 schreef Charles Phillips via Seesat-l:
> > All -
> > 
> > After looking for the right colleague for a LONG LONG time I have found a guy locally with the right telescope, mount, and interest - so we are close to tracking satellites. 
> 
> 
> Hi Charles and others,
> 
> To be clear, also to other newbies to satellite tracking: you don't need a
> telescope to track satellites at all!
> 
> And if you do use a telescope to track faint high objects, you also don't have
> to track the telescope on the satellites themselves - rather, just use normal
> sidereal tracking.
> 
> You can then use any astrometric software package to get astrometry on the
> image. With tracking on the satellite itself, that is much more difficult as
> most astrometry packages are not meant for that situation.
> 
> Note that most satellites (including in HEO and GEO) can be tracked by simpler
> means than telescopes.
> 
> If you track 'old skool', i.e. visually, all you need is a good pair of
> binoculars and a stopwatch (as well as a reliable time source).
> 
> More 'modern' is to track by imaging, with either a DSLR, sensitive video camera
> or CCD.
> 
> Myself, I use a normal DSLR camera on a fixed tripod with a set of rather normal
> photographic lenses (primes ranging from a F2.0/35 mm lens to a F2.8/180 mm lens).
> 
> I also use a sensitive surveillance video camera, a WATEC 902H, with (again) a
> set of photograhpic lenses (usually a F1.8/50 mm, sometimes a F1.4/85 mm for
> fainter objects, and a GPS time inserter), on a fixed tripod. I use this on LEO
> objects.
> 
> Objects in HEO (which you seem to be interested in) and GEO, I exclusively track
> using the DSLR and 2.8/180 mm photographic lens (an old Zeiss Jena with an
> adapter to fit it on my Canon EOS 60D), from a fixed photographic tripod.
> 
> Don't use telescopes unless you want to target very small faint and distant
> objects beyond the reach of normal photographic lenses: or, use them if your
> goal is not to track but to make high-resolution imagery of large low objects
> like the ISS. Only in the latter case is a mount tracking on the satellite
> itself necessary.
> 
> - Marco
>
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