I have a long telescope for star gazing. (It's a cheapo tho). Could I discover a line of site Echostar Sat with it? I want to know exactly where it is from various points on my property. I live in Virginia and will be looking for Sat 119 west of here.
See Sat with telescope?
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Doubt it. First, the satellite would need to be in daylight when you're in darkness, which will occur sometimes but not as often as you'd think.
Second, the satellite is over 22,000 miles away.
I don't think a good quality telescope would even pick it up, so definitely not one of those cheapo ones.
Second, the satellite is over 22,000 miles away.
I don't think a good quality telescope would even pick it up, so definitely not one of those cheapo ones.
Actually, you can do it very well, if your telescope has an equatorial mount. All of the satellites are located at the Equator. Set your telescope up for your lattitude. The right ascension will be directly related to the longitude of the satellite's location to your position.
I have allways wondered if one woudl be able to do this.. the best time for viewing would be dusk/dawn.
I have a co-worker who is an amateur astronomer (has a dome and everything). He see sats in the clarke belt and elsewhere all the time. Heck he takes photos of Neptune that look like text book stuff. But I don't think your average scope will see those, but maybe the close ones that are only a few hundred miles up.
It would be quite simple to build a tilting plane table that can be tilted to the observer's degrees in lattitude. If you tilt the 180 degrees centerline to the observers exact geographical south, any satellite location can then be found on an a 360 degree protractor on the table. The sun would be exactly overhead in that position at 12:00 Noon Local Standard time. This measurement will be the observer's longitude.
The term AM means ante meridian or before the meridian exactly overhead. Noon should be appropriately termed M or meridian. PM means post meridian or after the sun passes the position directly overhead.
The term AM means ante meridian or before the meridian exactly overhead. Noon should be appropriately termed M or meridian. PM means post meridian or after the sun passes the position directly overhead.
Correct for many of the above posts. The best time, actually the only time, would be dusk and dawn when the satellites are in sunlight and you are in darkness.
Since the satellites are geostationary, there's no motor tracking necessary.
You'll still need quite a telescope to accomplish it though. Your average $300 refractor isn't gonna cut it.
I know some amateur astronomers, one with a quite high end 14" reflector, I'll have to ask him.
Since the satellites are geostationary, there's no motor tracking necessary.
You'll still need quite a telescope to accomplish it though. Your average $300 refractor isn't gonna cut it.
I know some amateur astronomers, one with a quite high end 14" reflector, I'll have to ask him.
I have good news and bad news and more bad news. First the good news: There are probably hundreds of amateur astronomers that could photograph an E* sat.
Now some bad news: If you live in a city of any size the light pollution would make its impossible to see or photograph something as dim as a satellite at more than 22,000 miles (They are not quite as big as a short school bus.) If you go out on a moonless night and can't count *hundreds* of stars then the sky is not dark enough.
Now the worst news: IF the sky is clear and dark enough and IF you have a very good quality mount with excellent computerized tracking and IF you had very good optics... When you got your eyeball down to the eye piece you would see dozens, at least, if not hundreds of points of light and you would have *zero* chance of guessing which point of light was the sat and not a star.
Now if you went at this with a digital camera hooked up to the telescope, assuming everything like before, if you let the telescope take a 30 minute time exposure while it follows the motion of the stars through the night sky when you looked at the picture all the stars would still be points of light but the satellite would be a nice short line across the frame.
There is at least one website that posts pictures of satellites but I can't find the link at the moment. You might be able to google it though.
Now some bad news: If you live in a city of any size the light pollution would make its impossible to see or photograph something as dim as a satellite at more than 22,000 miles (They are not quite as big as a short school bus.) If you go out on a moonless night and can't count *hundreds* of stars then the sky is not dark enough.
Now the worst news: IF the sky is clear and dark enough and IF you have a very good quality mount with excellent computerized tracking and IF you had very good optics... When you got your eyeball down to the eye piece you would see dozens, at least, if not hundreds of points of light and you would have *zero* chance of guessing which point of light was the sat and not a star.
Now if you went at this with a digital camera hooked up to the telescope, assuming everything like before, if you let the telescope take a 30 minute time exposure while it follows the motion of the stars through the night sky when you looked at the picture all the stars would still be points of light but the satellite would be a nice short line across the frame.
There is at least one website that posts pictures of satellites but I can't find the link at the moment. You might be able to google it though.
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Or you could just set your camera on a picnic table and take a time exposure for an hour or two.
But MY first method makes prettier pictures
If all you want to do it is figure out the location of the satellite, go to:
DishPointer.com - Easy Satellite Dish Pointing and enter your address. You could use the zoom function and the satellite views of your property to determine where the satellite is located.
It would seem that just the opposite would be true if you simply left the telescope in a stationary position. The stars would create the streaks/lines, and the satellite would remain as the constant in the picture due to its consistent location in the sky.
Thinking about it, if you just want an accurate line of site from various places on your property you can do that pretty easily by setting your telescope's elevation to what Dish says for your zipcode and then just putting it all the placess you want to check and then sight along the barrel of the scope using a compass to get the direction. Just remember to make sure the telescope mount is level or the angle part will be off. Now you can just look through the scope and find out if there is clear sky or not.
I did this kind of thing by just using a protractor to cut a piece of cardbord into the correct triangle then taping it to a builders level. Then I'd use a compass to get the direction and hold the triangle to my eye and peaking at the level until it was right and I was as accurate and anyone would need to check clear line of sight.
If the view is really cluttered you can put a rig like this on a camera tripod and really dial it in.
The only reason I went my way was to use stars in the frame to verify exactly where you were pointing. The star steak pictures force you to totally rely on the accuracy of your aim.
I'm biased toward amateur astronomer's methods who work with star charts and navigate by hoping from known stars to known stars. Then the odd stuff you spot just requires an accurate time to fix it in space.
I like this site for finding LOS where it is tight. This uses the sun or moon ie if the sun is shining or the moon is shining on the spot at a given day and time you know you are good to go. Only problem is sometimes you have to wait a while or the time may not be good for you but it sure is accurate if you entered all data correctly.
Place satellite dish using sun or moon
Place satellite dish using sun or moon
The coordinates Dish gives is only to the nearest degree...not nearly accurate enough for a high-powered scope.
What I was describing was just looking through the eyepiece (or along the barrel) to see if you see sky or obstruction. We already hashed out the possibilities of actually viewing a sat. (0 to none) Photography is a whole other story.
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Yeah, taken at ancient time
- I see only MSAT 1 still on same place at 106.5W; a lot of sats added - can we get back to the author and ask for latest picture ?
