(meteorobs) satellite question

Chris Peterson clp at alumni.caltech.edu
Mon Jan 4 15:00:11 EST 2010


Actually, I was referring to geosynchronous satellites, not geostationary. I 
assumed his camera wasn't tracking, so he shouldn't see any movement at all 
in geostats. Of course, if the camera _was_ tracking than both geosync and 
geostat satellites will appear to move slowly.

Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Marco Langbroek" <marco.langbroek at wanadoo.nl>
To: "Global Meteor Observing Forum" <meteorobs at meteorobs.org>
Sent: Monday, January 04, 2010 12:30 PM
Subject: Re: (meteorobs) satellite question


> HEO satellites (HEO=Highly Elliptical Orbit: aka 'Molniya' orbits) do 
> exactly
> this. They make approximately 2 orbit revolutions a day, and near their 
> apogeum
> linger on in a small area of the sky for hours.
>
> You didn't mention your FOV, but a typical HEO near apogeum moves no more 
> than
> 0.1 degree/minute. At apogeum, they can be at very high declinations north 
> or
> south (usually north).
>
> As Chris mentioned, there is also the geostationary sats. These are stable 
> in
> azimuth and altitude. It depends a bit on where you are but a 
> geostationary sat
> should have a stable declination in the order of -5 to -7 degree south, 
> i.e.
> just south of the celestial equator.




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