Thomas Dorman wrote recently: >Does any one know where I can find up-dated TLe for >TiPs.I imaged TiPS on April 6 and would like to image >this sat.again. >The old TLE for TiPS from April 9 show several high >passes for my location from May 1st to May 8th.Also >these passes are to have brightness in the 5th and 6th >magnitude range.On these passes I hope to image TiPS >with my 70mm telescope and my supercircuits 163c low >light camera.Can anyone help. >Regards >Thomas Dorman Using the current elements in CLASSFD.TLE for TIPS I observed two passes last night ( 25th April) and found TIPS to be running about 11 seconds late. I will report the observations tomorrow and new elements for TIPS should be available for early May. You may find it a bit difficult to image TIPS with your proposed set-up. If its a conventional 70mm telescope your field of view will be rather small and it will be easy to miss TIPS. Ideally you should not try and use a focal length longer than about 150-300mm for video observations of satellites. Depending on the distance to TIPS you will find quite a variation in magnitude -Ive seen it naked eye when doing passes near perigee but when at apogee /long range it can be quite faint - last night my first pass - one through the zenith - was about magnitude +6 to +7, whilst the second pass at about 15 degrees elevation was magnitude +9 to +10. The two masses at the ends of the tether (RALPH and NORTON) gives frequent flashes during a pass. One advantage of using a video camera is that the tether is much easier to see , especially when doing a high elevation pass. With my video system the tether really stands out on most passes . Hope this helps. Good luck Cheers Greg ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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