Astra shadow entry animation

From: John Locker (john@satcom.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Tue Mar 09 2004 - 05:45:46 EST

  • Next message: John Locker: "Re: Astra shadow entry animation"

    The bright moon certainly caused problems last night , but  camera obs over
    a period of three hours ( 1930 gmt - 2330 gmt) produced about 300 useable
    frames from the 19 east Astra group (Seven spacecraft)
    
    The results can be seen here ( selected 11 second frames) :
    http://mysite.freeserve.com/satcom_transits/astrashadowa.gif ( 5mb) or in
    greatly reduced size here
    http://mysite.freeserve.com/satcom_transits/astrashadowb.gif  (2mb)
    
    Shadow entry occured at  08/03/2004 22:24:58; 12.48s according to the camera
    log and the washout due to increasing lunar glare is plain to see. In the
    final frame , captured around 2325 the seven birds can just be seen after
    emerging from eclipse . A certain amount of contrast adjustment had to be
    made to this frame to bring out the very faint detail.
    
    Interestingly the "rotation " of the middle group of three sats is quite
    pronounced.
    FOV 30 arc minutes.....Meade LX90 8 inch , 25 mm eyepiece projection.
    
    Regards,
    
    John.
    http://www.satcom.freeserve.co.uk/
    
    
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