Satellite Tracking Using a Portable 8 Aperture Telescope July 26, - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Satellite Tracking Using a Portable 8 ” Aperture Telescope July 26, 2006 Jayson Nakakura University of Hawaii at Manoa 1

Trex Enterprises ’ Maui ♦ Kahului, Maui ♦ Mentors – Riki Maeda and Daron Nishimoto ♦ US Government Support – Defense – Homeland Security – Force Protection ♦ Projects – CMOS Image Sensors – Adaptive Optics – Deployable Tracking Systems 2

Deployable Tracking System ♦ Why Track Satellites? – Need to know satellite activity • Friendly or Spy? • What is it doing? • Where is it looking? – Quantity • Many transportable telescopes • Not dependent on observatories (i.e. AEOS) ♦ Tracking with Low Residual Error – Keeping Satellites Centered in the Field of View (FOV) as they orbit over head 3

Conditions for Success North Finding Mobility Self Leveling GPS Enabled Deployable Tracking System High Slew Accuracy Large Resolution Speeds Mirror Precise Satellite High Speed Orbiting Data Camera 4

Meade LX200GPS 8 ” Aperture 8 x 50mm Viewfinder (203 mm) • GPS Alignment System Focus • True-Level Sensors F = 2000mm • North Electronic Sensors Slew Rate Autostar II Control System 8° per second 5

Satellite Tracker The predicted pass of Satellite Tracker processes Two Line COSMOS 1782 Element Sets (TLES) to predict satellite orbits. The telescope uses this data to point towards and slew with the passing satellite. 6

Lunar Planetary Imager (LPI) Color CMOS Chip with a 640 x 480 pixel resolution 7

LPI Imaging 8

Instantaneous Field of View (IFOV) 9

Albireo 10

Albireo - 3x Magnification 11

Conditions for Tracking ♦ Weather ♦ Terminator – The time period when satellites reflect sunlight, making them visible • A few hours after sunset • A few hours before sunrise ♦ Satellite Magnitudes – Visibility of the satellites 12

Finding Residual Error • Take about 100 frames • Find de-centered distances in arc-seconds • Calculate average with a standard deviation 13

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Autostar II Used for Manual Tracking Controls telescope slew direction Controls telescope slew speeds 15

International Space Station (ISS) 16

Tracking a Plane 17

Average Residual Error 18

Conclusion Is Satellite Tracking Feasible? Yes No • Able to slew with satellites • Unable to center when using Satellite Tracker • Able to manually track satellites • Able to image • Able to manually track planes Improvements? Satellite Tracker telescope controlling software Time ♦ Deployable Tracking System – With better software, it will successfully track satellites – With a much larger aperture, it should successfully image satellites 19

Thank You Malika Moutawakkil Bell Hilary O ’ Bryan Lisa Hunter Riki Maeda Daron Nishimoto Wes Friewald Justin O ’ Brien John Hirata Suzanne Burns Uncle Kahu Charlie Kauluwehi Maxwell Sr. 20