Lacrosse 5 and Murphy...

Soooooo.......I had the alarm clock set to try to catch an early morning pass (4:47 am local time) of Lacrosse 5 with the camera...

And I've seen Lacrosse 5 indeed, starting at a blazing mag. -1 descending below Corona Borealis...... Nice......!

Even have it on photograph indeed....no joke, I realy have.

BUT......

Yep, screwed it up indeed. So no measurements... * beats head on desk *

I slept through the first alarm of my alarm clock. Then was woken up by the repeat 8 minutes later. 8 vital minutes later, because now I had to hurry...

To make a short story long....was in a hurry....rushed outside onto the courtyard....set up tripod and installed camera, looked up to point it.....: saw a blazing -1 Lacrosse, already there....

Panic! Open that camera you fool!

* click *

Arrrghhhh, wrong camera setting!!! Shoot shoot shoot shoot!

Basically, I forgot to set the 10-second timer and pre-select infinity focus. I have a nice picture with a bright trail but as the timing calibration of the exposure start depends on the camera settings, it's worthless for astrometry.

There was a gnashing of teeth in the night that must have woken up many of the neighbours.....

First observations at the new location!

After a long period with grey skyscapes and generally uncomfy weather, the skies turned into a beautiful blue today. So I ran Quicksat to see what passes I could target.

Only low passes (all below 50 degrees altitude) were available. Lacrosse 3 turned out to be just too faint at this low pass. The Lacrosse 5 Rocket body (2005-016B, #28647) however, was well visible, passing just under Polaris at 48 degrees altitude. It varied in brightness between roughly +2.0 and +3.0. The trail showed up well enough on the image to measure it and yield good results.

This is a perfect example of a pass that could not have been targetted at my old location (which, remember, had no view to the north).

I had some trouble initially with Astrorecord, who it seemed could not get a good fit on the stars. After only a few stars, it started to report outrageous fits of 99'98" and all kinds of strange messages popped up. Initially, I thought this might be due to the fact that I was measuring stars strewn around the celestial pole. After some time however, it transpired that one single misidentification (!) of a star f***** up the fit: I had mistaken 24 Cas for 18 Cas (Cassiopeia was at the edge of the frame). With that corrected, the fits yielded the typical 30" accuracy.

From Cospar 4352 to 4353

The move has been completed! Station 4352 has changed location and become 4353.

Last Sunday we transferred all my belongings to my new home, last days I spend unpacking, and although the later has not been completely finished yet, I am more or less settled here now.

Now waiting for clear skies....

Suitsat becomes Mutesat....

Last night during an EVA, ISS station commander Bill McArthur and flight engineer Valery Tokarev released an old Orlan spacesuit into space. NASA-TV had some wonderful footage of the spacewalk and release of the expired suit, which was hurled into space by hand by Tokarev.

As a gimick, the suit had been fitted with a.o. a battery-powered radio transmitter, transmitting a 1 Watt signal at 145.990 MHz. The transmission should have included voice greetings, telemetry spoken by a voice synthesizer, and slow-scan TV.

Should: because all radio amateurs eagerly waiting for a pass behind their receivers were disappointed. Suitsat ceased transmitting very shortly after release and thus rather became "Mutesat". I was behind my scanner-radio too, during the 6:06 and 7:41 UTC passes, to hear only static.

See also:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/station/exp12/060203evawrap.html

New Cospar ID and coordinates

With the move, SatTrackCam will of course get a new Cospar ID. Pierre Neirinck has assigned my new location the Cospar ID number 4353.

The coordinates of the new site are:

WGS84: 52d 09' 14.84" N, 4d 29' 26.90" E
(52.15412 N, 4.49081 E)
0 meter ASL

This is 0.55 km due south of my previous location.

The new home of SatTrackCam...!

I got the keys to my new home yesterday. So I have been amusing myself with measuring up the apartment, making a map of it, and trying to fit my existing furniture in it. In the configuration I finally settled on, I would have room for an extra wardrobe, an extra part to my bookshelves (doubling it in size, and this is much needed as in my current home the books pile up against the wall because of a lack of available shelve space) and a low extra cabinet to extend my desk. So, a trip to IKEA on the 11th.....

I also made a GPS measurement in the central courtyard of the complex, and of course shot several pictures, a few of which can be seen below.

The open door on the right of the 3rd image is the entrance to the small hall giving acces to my appartment, and the larger window and the small window to the left of it belong to my appartment. The kitchen shown in the pictures will be replaced with a new one this month by the housing corporation.

So: now let the painting and other indoor construction works begin.... I have settled the move itself on February 12th.

Beautiful Stardust re-entry movie!

Stardust Capsule Reentry Movie filmed from NASA DC-8 aircraft (requires Quicktime)

This is a stunning movie of the Stardust capsule re-entry, taken from aboard the NASA Airborne Mission's DC-8 aircraft. Watch the capsule become visible and rapidly brightening amidst the starry sky, and develop a beautiful plasma tail.

For me personally also fun to hear the voice of mission PI Dr Peter Jenniskens, who's a long standing friend of mine (he's the one a.o. saying: "Plasma lines detected"). We used to observe meteors together when he was still in Hollland.

SatTrackCam is going to move!!!

SatTrackCam is going to move! I am moving to a new home here in Leiden in mid-February. The move will be less than 1 kilometer in distance, but it will greatly benefit my observing capabilities.

In my current location, I don't have a balcony or garden. So I observe from my window opening, which is looking south, and therefore can only target objects that pass south of the zenith. This greatly limits the number of targettable passes for me currently, especially during the winter. This is one of the reasons for my inactivity the past few months.

I will be moving now to a small appartment located in one of the typical former "almshouses" (Dutch: "Hofje"). An "almshouse" consists of a series of small homes surrounding a secluded courtyard. These almshouses were usually founded in the 17th to early 19th century by a rich maecenas, usually intended for a specific goal: e.g. housing impoverished Preacher's widows. They are very secluded, and form little oasis of tranquility in the town.

The courtyard of the almshouse I will move to, will permit me access to the full zenith, down to at least 40 degrees in the north, east and south, and about 15-20 degrees towards west. This will certainly increase the number of passes I will be able to target. And as the courtyard is accessible only to the inhabitants of the almshouse, its a safe environment too.

I'll get the key to the new appartment on February 1st, and plan to move mid-February. Its not too far from the historic old Leiden Observatory.

Failed - trail too faint (Lacrosse 4)

Saturday, October 15, 2005, 20:49:24

Just tried to image a pass of Lacrosse 4.

The almost full moon was already up, and it was
slightly hazy. Hence, the sky background came out
very bright on the image. The trail of Lacrosse 4
is visible on the image, but too faint to reliably
measure, alas.

Observations of Russell Eberst on the 13th yield
similar delta T's for Lacrosse 4 as my observations
from the 10th.

Clear sky and fine Lacrosse trail

Clear skies again at last! Yesterday and today the sky
was bright blue. Yesterday evening I managed to get
two fine pictures of Lacrosse 4 (00-047A, #26473), one
as it sailed across Andromeda at about +2.0, the other
while it was entering eclipse in Pegasus (hence only
the start of the track was measured for the latter
image).

The first image yielded a splendid well-defined trail.

In all, 3 positions. The 3rd point is perhaps less good
as the 1st and 2nd, as the trail already was becoming
faint due to eclipse entry.

The delta T's are quite consistent internally: the
satellite was 1.5 seconds late relative to Mike's 10 day
old elset 05273.79219807.

Foggy skies and Lacrosses

Saturday, October 08, 2005, 00:46:14 LT

After many days of bad weather, I tried to capture a
spy bird again. Earlier this evening I obtained a meagre
one point on Lacrosse 3 (97-064 A), obtained under very
poor conditions. The sky was very hazy (fog). Only the
beginpoint of the trail did I trust and report.

Tried to capture Lacrosse 2 as well somewhat earlier, but
the sky was still too bright and foggy.

Bad weather

We have bad weather here for over a week now. That is
not unusual in this time of the year. Expect the next
3-4 months to see only sporadic observing activity due
to this.

So for the moment, it is back to asteroids.....

Blue skies and USA 129 again

Monday, September 19, 2005, 23:24:36 LT

Just an hour ago, captured what now is becoming an
old friend: USA 129 (96-072A, #24680, a "Keyhole").
Image fogged by moonlight, but trail well discernable.
Two apparently good points, both about 0.1s late
relative to Ted's latest elset, with good crosstrack
values.

Spent a good part of the day searching for TNO's and
asteroids in NEAT data.

Both Ted and Pierre mailed me to point to the nice
residuals of yesterdays USA 129 observations.

Update

Monday, September 19, 2005, 11:26:35 LT

Quick update to my last post:

* The context of other observations on USA 129
suggests that the delta T problem is gone.
This might indicate the change in used camera
settings indeed was the cause.

* Alas, I could not pry more than two nights of
data on the asteroid out of the NEAT archives.
This means it is no use submitting to the MPC.

Astrometry fiesta

Last night was an astrometry fiesta.

I captured Lacrosse 3 (97-064A, #25017) during its
19:40 UTC pass, crossing Delphinus. Following this
I captured USA 129 (96-072A, #24680) as it crossed
from Pegasus into Andromeda. The images were
heavily fogged by moonlight and the trails marginal,
but measurable.

In addition to this, I bumped into a potentially new
main belt asteroid while searching for TNO's in the
NEAT image archives. I am still in the process of
prying and measuring more images out of the archive
in order to get enough nights to submit it to the MPC.

I was quite tired last night, so I stopped early and
am in the process of continuing astrometry this morning.

No observing opportunities

Last week for various reasons saw no observing opportunities. Either weather was bad, or I had other things to do.

This is a bad season anyway: from late September to January, and especially October-November, skies are often overcast.

Delta t deviation

It appears that my delta T values again come out
some ~0.3s "early" relative to other stations.

As this was not the case for my August data, I have
begun to suspect it is the result of my recent
change in camera settings (other setting for colour
and contrast, to bring out fainter trails better).
Apparently, this also changed the intitiation time
of the camera by an extra 0.3s.

As of now I will use the empirical 0.3s value to
adjust my timings accordingly.

USA 129, but no aurora

Monday, September 12, 2005, 23:59:46 LT

An aurora warning was out, as the geomagnetic
activity was very high due to a series of X-class
flares on the sun today and yesterday.

Aurora was not seen, but Keyhole satellite USA 129
(96-072A, #24680) was captured by the camera at
20:43:10 UTC. A clear unambiguous trail is visible
on the image, yielding two points. I am very curious
as to how the delta T values will compare to those
of other stations this time. It will be running "early"
anyway because of the high geomagnetic activity (which
increases the drag, as the atmosphere expands due to
it).

An exposure was made one minute earlier too, but the
satellite is not visible on that image.

Accuracy problem with deltaT

I posted a number of accuracy test lately. But now some
results have appeared that deviate. It concerns the data
on 96-072A (USA 129) of the 8th.

The problem is in the delta T values. They come out some
0.3-0.5s too early compared to other data gathered by
other stations around that time. It concerns data from
two separate images.

In below table, the asterisk-marked points are mine. The
other points are by David Brierley and Peter Wakelin.
The given delta T values are relative to Ted Molczan's
elset 05253.13803400.

deltaT
-0.10
-0.11
-0.37 *
-0.29 *
-0.48 *
0.04
0.06
0.07
0.07
0.08
0.11
0.05
0.10
-0.02
-0.11
-0.08
-0.03
-0.03
-0.03
-0.03
0.04

I am at a loss to explain this deviation.
Something in the timing is not right, but what?

The crosstrack value of the second point initially was
somewhat off (0.07 degree). This turned out to be because
I had switched the image reference time and object position
time in Astrorecord. When this was corrected, the crosstrack
value came out fine (but the delta T difference remained).

Flare of USA 129 Keyhole satellite

Yesterday evening I captured this image of the American Keyhole imaging satellite USA 129 (96-072A, #24680) starting to flare brightly near the zenith. A few seconds after the end of this exposure it reached magnitude -1.5. A second exposure starting 30 seconds later only shows a faint trail, estimated about magnitude +3.0.

This picture and the second one provided three positions