Comments on: Shooting satellites, new and old

By: Jim G.

Jim G. — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 10:06:45 +0000

Just FYI, there is more than one “all sky network”. The four camera network you cited is the NASA fireball camera network…see http://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov/ which is under development by Dr. Bill Cooke at MSFC-MEO Huntsville, AL. Another much more extensive network is the Sandia Sentinel Fireball Camera Network/North American All Sky Camera Database which currently has more than 100 cameras deployed and continues to expand worldwide…See http://allsky.ca/NAdatabase.html Those cams are currently being hubbed by a New Mexico State University project…see http://skysentinel.nmsu.edu/allsky/ Regular postings of events captured by both networks, and other events reported by the public can be found at my site http://elpasoallsky.blogspot.com
Thanks,
Jim Gamble

By: Coda

Coda — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 15:10:13 +0000

@Bill – Thanks for the tip about the app–I just finished installing it, and can’t wait to put it to use!

By: Dotan Cohen

Dotan Cohen — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 06:48:53 +0000

So if one sees an object, to which website can he refer the next day to determine what it was?

Thanks!

By: WJM

WJM — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 05:14:10 +0000

@Bill, I’ve done that to random strangers, too!

By: lqd

lqd — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 03:04:21 +0000

Thanks Phil, and even bigger thanks to Heavens Above—I just saw my first Iridium Flare! It was Iridium 59, and it was -7 magnitude. I was 6.5 km from the flare center.

By: Davin Flateau

Davin Flateau — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 22:44:49 +0000

Hey – Aaron (comment above) alerted me to this thread. Indeed, this past winter, I was measuring the brightness over time of the exoplanet XO-2 b as it was traveling in front of its star (on a particularly bad night of seeing).

This satellite hit an entire solar system!

Picture here:

http://theperfectsilence.com/satellitehit.jpg

By: Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum

Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 18:37:59 +0000

Here’s the holy grail for this sort of satellite hunting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard_1
This puppy needs to be brought back & put in the National Air & Space Museum!

By: Sam H

Sam H — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 17:40:54 +0000

@3 Uncle Al: I’m impressed that we still have debris that big (larger than 8 meters long/wide) still up there in LEO after all this time!! We should send something to attach a small ion propulsion module or something to it so it can deorbit and burn up (since the debris is this big it should be easy to clean up), but what data on all that exterior decay help us with? Would it give us a greater understanding of cosmic radiation that could lead to better research on future spacecraft design, especially in the region of radiation shielding??

By: Bill

Bill — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 16:39:00 +0000

Heaven’s Above also has a very nice smart phone app available for iPhones and Androids. It integrates with your phone’s GPS and compass to make events very easy to anticipate. I’ve impressed the heck out of complete strangers by pointing out ISS passes and Iridium flares to random people who see me gazing upward and asking what I’m staring at.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 16:35:41 +0000

A friend of mine once tried to record an exoplanet transit when a satellite zipped right in front of his target star! It was the -best photobomb ever-.

I’ll ask him to send you the picture, Phil!

By: Uncle Al

Uncle Al — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 16:07:43 +0000

That booster is a treasure trove of captured high velocity atoms and ions after a half-century of orbit, data on erosion of surface coatings and compositions, plus isotope transmutation re cosmic rays. Priority should be assigned to recover it.

By: hale-bopp

hale-bopp — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 13:47:07 +0000

I have taken lots of shots of the ISS and even several of the ISS and shuttle either right before of after docking when they are two specs of light moving together.

The last flight of Endeavor, I got them after shortly after undocking and you can even see a faint haze beneath Endeavor…I got it right when they were doing a water dump! Unfortunately, it was a very early morning shot and I didn’t have the camera settings quite right to really capture it well. You can see it, but I forgot to check all the settings. Hey, it was early…that’s my story and I am sticking with it!

By: Chris P

Chris P — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 13:19:05 +0000

you don’t even need to enter your lat and long coordinates (unless you want to be super-accurate) you can just enter your country and town.
don’t forget to look up iridium flares too, they’re very regular and really impressive.