Hello Masahiro,
Thank you for your message! You have made a great observation, and I think you are exactly right about the cause of the observed "glitches" in the telemetry. Usually at this point in its orbit we would observe AO-51 charging its batteries at a steady rate from fully illuminated panels.
From what I've read from page 43 here:
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEpubs/2010/TP214171a.pdf the eclipse was from 18:15 to 20:52 UTC. Look also at the areas experiencing eclipse.
Please be aware that the "clock" on AO-51 runs fast. It is now about 3 minutes fast, so look at telemetry timestamped from about 18:18 until 20:55 UTC.
Since the duration of the solar eclipse was 2 hrs 39 min (or 159 mins) and AO-51 orbits every 100 minutes or so, it could have been affected two times.
I've plotted some of the telemetry collected from that period (telemetry from 1800-2130utc) and posted it here: http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ftp/telemetry/ao51/2010WOD/July2010/Wd071100_1800...
And here's a screenshot of AO-51 at the time: http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ftp/telemetry/ao51/2010WOD/July2010/ao51_11July20...
73!
Mark N8MH
2010/7/13 Masahiro Arai [email protected]:
Total solar eclipse was observed in southern Pacific Ocean at 11th July. I checked AO-51 WOD file. Total Array I shows glitch at 2043-2045z. AO-51 was located on east of Argentina at the time. Is this glitch made with solar eclipse??
AO-51 Wd071100 2010/7/11 UTC Total Array I [mA] 20:35 -2.111 20:36 -0.323 20:37 -0.323 20:38 1.465 20:39 -0.323 20:40 528.851 20:41 321.472 20:42 307.170 20:43 183.815 20:44 190.966 20:45 176.664 20:46 249.962 20:47 300.019 20:48 396.557 20:49 498.459 20:50 519.912 20:51 729.079 20:52 634.328 20:53 936.458 20:54 843.495 20:55 948.972
WOD file ftp://ftp.amsat.org/pub/amsat/telemetry/ao51/2010WOD/July2010/Wd071100
AO-51 WOD decoder http://tinyurl.com/DK3WNsoftware
73
Masa JN1GKZ Tokyo Japan
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