Has there been any serious attempt to take a photograph of the damaged bird using ground based optical telescopes while it is in sunlight ? With modern telescopes such as http://www.refractortelescopes.co.uk/reviews/orion/orion-shorttube-80-a-refr... or similiar and a modern digital camera and a known RA/DEC co-ordinate of the satellite at any point in its orbit, it should be possible get a fairly decent picture of what is still up there...
Note RA / DEC are astronomy co-ordinates which should be able to be calculated from AZ/EL or TLE, but I may not be able to do it myself.
We don't need to track it, but just to image it in several consecutive frames. From: http://www.emergentspace.com/pubs/AIAA_GNC_2002_AMSAT_A040.pdf
Table 1. Nominal Orbit Parameters for AO-40 Orbit Parameter Value Semimajor Axis (km) 36,245 Perigee Height (km) 1,042 Apogee Height (km) 58,691 Eccentricity 0.797 Inclination (deg) 6.04 Period (hours) 19.1
On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 9:49 PM, Rocky Jones orbitjet@hotmail.com wrote:
I think both those things are accurate.
Robert WB5MZO
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:31:30 -0400 From: mat_62@netcommander.com To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Can we get them to fix AO-40 first then?
I guess I need to go back and read the archives because what I remember reading didn't give me any hope AO-40 would ever be back. Wasn't there something about that they believed the spacecraft was leaking corrosive fuel? Doesn't sound to conducive to any type of recovery of anything where electronics are involved.. I also thought there was talk of a "catastrophic explosion". Michael, W4HIJ _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
Hotmail: Powerful Free email with security by Microsoft. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/171222986/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb