Ted Molczan wrote: > I am not familiar with the design issues, but it seems to me that it might have > been better to have a lighter coloured body, to enable the object to be > observed using binoculars, as a hedge against infrequent flashes. Hi Ted and list, I asked the designer of the satellite the reason for the black colour of the body. He told me it was to keep the interior at a convenient temperature for the electronics inside. Even the inside is painted black, except for the instrument platform that is aluminum honeycomb covered with Kapton tape. As for positional measurements, the emphasis has now been placed on flash rate measurement. For obvious reasons, positional data would not be of great scientific value. But the flash rate is important to determine the effects of Eddy currents created in the satellite shell on its spin rate. This will help design the respin system for future Starshine sats. Here is a link to the Starshine page giving the instructions for beginners on how to measure and report the flash rate http://www.azinet.com/starshine/flash_rate.html Dan -- Daniel Deak representant, projet spatial Starshine Drummondville, Quebec COSPAR site 1746 : 45.8537°N, 72.4857°W, 90 m., UTC-4:00 Site en francais sur les satellites: French-language satellite web site : http://www.obsat.com ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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
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