The instrument as such is not so crude, but there is not much point in trying to measure period from a certain azimuth. While the satellite moves in its orbit, the Earth spins below, so BEFORE knowing the orbit (not only period) you can't know if you are looking at the same point along the orbit. Furthermore most orbits rotate by several degrees/day in its plane, and the plane itself by a few degrees/day. There are few of us who know that much of celestial mechanics, even less use it. We use programs that the few who do know have written, to analyze observations (in RA/Dec) posted by ourselves and others. Start looking at http://www.satobs.org/satintro.html http://www.satobs.org/tletools.html http://www.satobs.org/orbsoft.html http://www.satobs.org/otherinfo.html > I agree with you that the dipleidoscope is "crude" but is simple and > effective. ... > On the other side it's a bit discouraging to get book of general > celestial mechanics and find my road there, I'd need probably years ... > I'd like to read something intended to taught people in that specifical > task, probably. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jan 17 2003 - 10:27:17 EST