Spy Satellite Tracking Article - Wired

[Titanium]

Here is an interesting article in Wired about satellite hobbyist tracking spy satellites and other orbital objects. Any members participate in these groups?

http://www.wired.com/2016/06/backyard-detectives-search-for-snooping-space-satellites

 

[USDownlink]

I've never contributed data to those groups, but I have used their data to track and observe such satellites in the past.

That article keeps talking about binoculars, but that's the hard way. You need a good telescope. If the quality of the TLE data is sufficiently high, you'll point right to the bird and track it spot on as it moves.

Edit: I've also used this method once for a site survey in placing a satellite dish. I happened to be set up in a spot where I was considering placing a dish, so I set the telescope upon the more common geosynchronous targets we typically concern ourselves with here. Of course, I wouldn't ordinarily go to so much trouble to find a satellite, it just sort of worked out that way.

 

[hank123]

When I was younger I did a lot of meteor storm watching. During that time I would see satellites fly over constantly.
Interesting to see people keeping track of this stuff

 

[USDownlink]

Humanity is putting more stuff up than orbital decay brings down, and it shows. If you're in a relatively dark area and have a clear night sky, it shouldn't take more than a minute or two to spot something gracefully arcing overhead.

I taught my wife what to look for a couple years back. She hadn't ever even seen a decent starscape, being a city girl all her life, let alone a satellite. Now we live in the middle of nowhere, and it's very dark here at night. She proved remarkably adept at spotting them, and sometimes we go out and "compete" to see who can spot the most first.

 

[Cham]

Another hobby I have interest in is astro-photography. With a small scope and a camera one can take some real interesting shots with the hardware and process with software nowadays. Often take multiple time exposures of an object, especially deep sky like nebulae, galaxies, etc. So many of these exposures are ruined by these orbital objects floating through the target areas. I can certainly attest to their growing numbers!