Message posted by Matthew Ruch on July 06, 2010 at 7:39:09 PST:
Well Joerg. The capturing of photos is reserved for only the most insane of our group, but much respect goes to those who can accomplish it. Ralf Vandeberg from Belgium, is our resident expert on the subject and his very general description of his setup is as follows: The used instrument is a high quality optics, lightweight constructional 10 inch (0.25m) Newtonian reflecting telescope. Tracking of objects is accomplished fully manually using an attached smaller secondary scope at a low magnification. Imaging technique and setup is standardized, and the object paths across the sky are prepared for manual alignment. Best results occur when lighting angle, viewing angle, seeing, distance and other factors of objects are favorable. Original images are mostly taken in color to obtain the maximum possible information of the objects. And he didn't mention the obligatory CCD camera that is attached to the Newtonian. Since satellites orbits are known, ore are refined to a general area, through the use of skycharts and software, you will know in what general area they are in so that helps in getting the photo, but they are still moving at nearly 18,000 mph so it take consumate skill (much more than I have to pull it off). You can see more of his work here: http://www.startje.be/display.php?qid=347203&alias=ralfvandebergh Others in our group enjoy getting videos of satellite passes with Keven Fetter being our expert in that area of expertise. With an example here showing a very nice flare: http://www.kfetter.com/satvideo/2010/june/33065.wmv Now all that being said, it isn't a group that I would suggest most people join, since we tend not to try and track the normal run of the mill stuff that companies publish the orbital elements of, we enjoy tracking the things that no information is published on and sometimes to great success as is evidenced here: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/May-2010/0190.html Which is the post describing how we found the X-37B OTV in orbit, with accompanying video here: http://www.kfetter.com/satvideo/2010/may/May20unid.wmv Which lead to us having international news coverage: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/science/space/23secret.html that ultimately led us to be labeled as a "threat to national security" http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article489476.ece/Grandpa-a-threat-to-US-security So all this said if you are interested in seeing things above your head that most people are unaware of even being there, aren't afraid of a high volume (400+ emails a month) and can handle the learning curve of very highly technical disciplines we would love to have you. But before deciding if it is something you are truly interested in, please take a look at this archive of messages from the month of May to see if you feel that the group is good fit for you, and if you are a good fit for the group. http://www.satobs.org/seesat/May-2010/index.html Sorry for this novel of a post! Regards, Matt
In Reply to: Re: Odd lights - Central england heading sw toward cambridge/ipswich posted by Joerg (Webmaster) on July 06, 2010 at 1:38:23 PST:
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