Astrophotographer Ralf Vandebergh posts more amazingly detailed shots on his website of the International Space Station made with an amateur telescope:
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Find more about tracking and imaging of spacecraft in the HobbySpace Satellite Observing section.
The Orbital Sciences Cygnus cargo spacecraft, which launched on an Antares rocket on Wednesday from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at Wallops Island, Virginia, is gradually altering its orbit to match with the International Space Station. It will rendezvous and berth with the Station on Sunday morning. You can follow the vehicles with the Satellite Tracking Tool provided by BINARY SPACE. Here’s a recent screen capture:
I report on commercial launch activities like that of the Antares/Cygnus in my other gig as managing editor of NewSpace Watch. There’s a tremendous amount of exciting activity going on in entrepreneurial spaceflight and we report on it daily at NSW. Check it out and please consider subscribing.
Here is a video of Wednesday’s launch:
I’ve posted about the FUNcube Dongle before but it’s worth a repeat. This small device plugs into a USB port and when combined with a program like SDR# “A Software Defined Radio in C#” your computer becomes a fully functional radio tuner. With a proper antenna and preamplifier you can pick up satellite transmissions such as weather satellite images.
The FUNcube Dongle came out of a AMSAT UK project to allow students and hobbyists an easy system to use to receive signals from the FUNcube UK Amateur Radio Educational Satellite, which is expected to be launched this fall.
More at
See also the See HobbySpace Space Radio section and the HobbySpace Weather Satellite Station.
Mike Coletta is a ham radio hobbyist who uses RF signals emitted by the Air Force Space Surveillance System (AFSSS), also known as the space fence, “to track near-Earth objects like satellites and space debris”: Tracking the International Space Station with metal coat hangers – gigaom.com
Coletta tracks all kind of near-Earth objects: the International Space Station, satellites, meteors. Signals picked up by the antenna, which is made of a 10-foot wooden board and metal coat hangers, are converted into tones that differ depending on the direction and location of an object. The tones, layered over a background of heavy static, grown louder and then softer as the object passes by, like a train traveling toward you and then barreling away. Listen to the sound of the ISS here.
This space fence is described in this recent article: Air Force Space Command to discontinue space surveillance system – U.S. Air Force
The AFSSS, which has been operational since 1961, is just one part of AFSPC’s global Space Surveillance Network. The system is designed to transmit a “fence” of radar energy vertically into space to detect all objects intersecting that fence. The operational advantage of the AFSSS is its ability to detect objects in an un-cued fashion, rather than tracking objects based on previous information. The disadvantage is the inherent inaccuracy of the data, based on its dated design. The new operating modes at Cavalier AFS and Eglin AFB will provide more accuracy than the AFSSS and still collect un-cued observations.
Coletta’s website SatWatch.org describes the hobby. For example, the diagrams at Orbiting Object RF Reflection 101 at SatWatch.org show the basics of how an amateur radio receiving station can pick up the reflections of the AFSSS signals when an object passes through the AFSS beams. He also shows the data displays for over 100 different objects that he has tracked.
As a money saving measure, the AF is planning to shut down the AFSSS and use a lower cost system until a new $3B “space fence” is built.
Coletta and other space fence hobbyists won’t have to hang up their receivers, though:
Now, he’ll have to turn his attention to another source of radio waves: Mexican television stations.
“Guess what: Those signals also get bounced down from satellites, meteors and what not,” Coletta said. “You use it just like a space fence.”
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Check out Mike Coletta’s SPACE GAB webcast program “where we Gab about SPACE”.
A reader was interested in Satellite Observing and wondered if I knew of any looking-down style telescope devices like that used in Project Moonwatch during the 1950s:
![Moonwatch+scope2_f[1]](https://i0.wp.com/hobbyspace.com/Blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Moonwatch+scope2_f1.jpg?resize=341%2C250)
Such a system is much more comfortable for long observations, especially for those with back problems that make upward viewing difficult and painful.
I noted there were compact telescopes with bent eyepieces such as this Orion TableTop Refractor Telescope. However, he pointed out that these had narrow fields of view.
Fortunately, he later found the Sky Window apparatus that combines binoculars with an adjustable mirror:
Allows observer to be seated while “looking down” at the sky in total comfort.
Keeps binoculars fixed at a “microscope” angle while observing from horizon to zenith. Observer’s head never moves ! Only Sky Window® can do this !!
It works with “most modern binoculars with Standard 1/4-20 spindle tripod port ( adapter for Celestron giants and custom fit available)”. Check it out if this would suit your satellite observing style.
