{"id":12759,"date":"2016-06-14T11:00:10","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T15:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=12759"},"modified":"2016-06-14T01:14:05","modified_gmt":"2016-06-14T05:14:05","slug":"amateur-satellite-observers-can-spot-a-spysat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=12759","title":{"rendered":"Amateur satellite observers can spot a spysat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spysats can’t hide from determined amateur spacecraft trackers:\u00a0Backyard Detectives Out-Spy the Spies Orbiting Above – WIRED<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even spy satellites can\u2019t hide from a civilian with a pair of binoculars and a lot of free time. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to hide something that you can see in the sky,\u201d says John Magliacane, an amateur radio operator and satellite tracker in New Jersey. Just like the moon, satellites reflect sunlight back to Earth. Magliacane is a satellite tracker, but not one of the smaller sub-group that tracks spy satellites. However, he did end up doing some similar stuff during the era of space shuttle launches, upon which the military would occasionally piggyback payloads. \u201cSome people would try to figure out the orbital parameters based on the time of launch and information from previous missions,\u201d he says.<\/em><\/p>\n

The orbital characteristics tell you more than just where a satellite is: It can tell you what it does. For most satellites, this data is public, and published (among other places) on a website called CelesTrak<\/a>. The goods for each probe is a set of numbers called the two-line element. These are coordinates and time codes noting important things like the satellite\u2019s apogee, perigee, time it passed certain latitudes and longitude, how many times it orbits Earth in a day, and so on and so forth.<\/em><\/p>\n

More about satellite observations in the\u00a0HobbySpace Satellite Watching section<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spysats can’t hide from determined amateur spacecraft trackers:\u00a0Backyard Detectives Out-Spy the Spies Orbiting Above – WIRED\u00a0 Even spy satellites can\u2019t hide from a civilian with a pair of binoculars and a lot of free time. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to hide something that you can see in the sky,\u201d says John Magliacane, an amateur radio operator and … Continue reading Amateur satellite observers can spot a spysat<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-satellite-watching"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p34aWK-3jN","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":23131,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=23131","url_meta":{"origin":12759,"position":0},"title":"Student and amateur CubeSat news roundup – Nov.12.2020","author":"TopSpacer","date":"November 12, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"A sampling of recent articles, press releases, etc. related to student and amateur CubeSat \/ SmallSat projects and programs (find previous smallsat roundups here): ** Teachers In Space's Serenity educational CubeSat is ready to go to orbit on the first flight of the Firefly Alpha orbital rocket. 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