Re: Satellite identified in FISTA Leonid movie!

From: Joerg Kampmann (joerg.kampmann@ibk-consult.de)
Date: Mon Dec 31 2001 - 19:07:27 EST


congratulation to that success - and Happy New Year from Germany ...
it is just 1 hr of 01-01-02 ;)

Jörg

Matson, Robert wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> Success!!!  I finally matched up the starfield, and have now
> positively identified the satellite in this movie:
> 
> 
>>http://leonid.arc.nasa.gov/IMAGES/leonid-satellite.mov
>>
> 
> It was indeed DFS 3 R/B (USSPACECOM #22176, 92066B), one of the
> three candidates I listed earlier.  There were a number of reasons
> why it was hard to match up the starfield -- first, the diagonal
> field of view is only about 18 degrees, so recognizing a constellation
> is pretty much out.  Second, these intensified CCD cameras are more
> sensitive to red light then our eyes are, so the comparative brightness
> of stars in the video doesn't quite match the comparative visual
> magnitudes.  Finally, and perhaps most importantly, my assumed
> aircraft location (Okinawa) was off quite a bit, and since the
> camera was pointing nearly at zenith, this caused the satellite
> track to shift significantly relative to the stars.
> 
> What's amusing is that I can now tell FISTA where they were on
> 11/18/1998 at 4:43:35am UTC+9, since I simply moved the SkyMap
> observer location until the satellite lined up correctly relative
> to the stars!  Their approximate location was latitude 23.05N,
> longitude 126.27E -- a couple hundred miles southwest of Okinawa.
> 
> The bright star in the upper left of the frame is beta Geminorum
> (Mv +1.22), aka Pollux, and the camera is pointing about 10 degrees
> north of the zenith.  I can provide a SkyMap configuration file to
> anyone interested in comparing the video with my analysis.  The
> track is a perfect match.
> 
> Happy New Year to All,
> 
> Rob
> 
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> 


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