That works for one segment of the belt visible from your location. A network circling the globe would be needed for full coverage -- large oceanic regions particularly difficult. Not a 500 Euro problem.
Quote from: Star One on 09/01/2017 07:58 amQuote from: Semmel on 09/01/2017 07:43 amQuote from: Lars-J on 08/31/2017 06:10 pmWhere do they get footage like this? Is the entire geostationary belt under constant surveillance for incidents like this?I wondered the same. But after thinking a bit about it, its not that complicated. They just need a relatively cheap telescope and a web cam without optics, a tripod and clear skies. Would think equipment way below 500 Euro. They can tile the relevant part of the sky with a few of these. Given that these are GEO sats, they dont even need tracking. Just setup once. Constant monitoring of these birds would be a very easy setup to do and probably pays quite well with governments and other organizations that dont have their own monitoring system.I imagine who they are allowed to sell this data is heavily restricted by government licensing, this kind of data isn't going to be allowed to be sold in some kind of free for all considering its national security interest."National security interest"? You can't be serious.Everyone with a reasonably clear view of the equatorial belt and a good telescope can do these kind of observations. Heck, there are loads of amateur sat-observers who do this all the time. Courtesy of them comsats having a relative fixed position in the sky.LEO sats and SSO sats are also tracked by amateurs regularly. It is not a forbidden practice and it is allowed to publish the footage.Once a satellite gets up there it is for all to see. Just check YouTube for several hundreds of examples.Here's one from my favourite satellite: And how about this one? Observation of the ISS by the Public Observatory in Munich (Germany). You think the NSA is going to invade Germany over this one? Don't think so.
Quote from: Semmel on 09/01/2017 07:43 amQuote from: Lars-J on 08/31/2017 06:10 pmWhere do they get footage like this? Is the entire geostationary belt under constant surveillance for incidents like this?I wondered the same. But after thinking a bit about it, its not that complicated. They just need a relatively cheap telescope and a web cam without optics, a tripod and clear skies. Would think equipment way below 500 Euro. They can tile the relevant part of the sky with a few of these. Given that these are GEO sats, they dont even need tracking. Just setup once. Constant monitoring of these birds would be a very easy setup to do and probably pays quite well with governments and other organizations that dont have their own monitoring system.I imagine who they are allowed to sell this data is heavily restricted by government licensing, this kind of data isn't going to be allowed to be sold in some kind of free for all considering its national security interest.
Quote from: Lars-J on 08/31/2017 06:10 pmWhere do they get footage like this? Is the entire geostationary belt under constant surveillance for incidents like this?I wondered the same. But after thinking a bit about it, its not that complicated. They just need a relatively cheap telescope and a web cam without optics, a tripod and clear skies. Would think equipment way below 500 Euro. They can tile the relevant part of the sky with a few of these. Given that these are GEO sats, they dont even need tracking. Just setup once. Constant monitoring of these birds would be a very easy setup to do and probably pays quite well with governments and other organizations that dont have their own monitoring system.
Where do they get footage like this? Is the entire geostationary belt under constant surveillance for incidents like this?
I am well aware that it's done, but I am sure you are aware of the argument of whether it should be done in the case of classified payloads? Or do you think orbits are just classified for no reason.
Quote from: Star One on 09/01/2017 01:57 pmI am well aware that it's done, but I am sure you are aware of the argument of whether it should be done in the case of classified payloads? Or do you think orbits are just classified for no reason.Nowadays the amateurs have gotten extremely good at de-classifying orbits. Usually classified payloads are found in orbit within weeks (at most) with their orbits known in full detail shortly after. No payload that can be observed from the ground is "classified". Basically: the minute a payload is dropped-off in orbit it is up there for all to see. If one can resolve the orbit by just tracking a dot that is moving thru the skies than one is free to observe that dot in (much) greater detail.These days the only way to keep a payload classified is to not launch it at all.
Well the ORS-5 payload has just proved that argument incorrect in all cases as its orbit makes it unobservable to skilled amateurs.http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Aug-2017/0123.html
Well the ORS-5 payload has just proved that argument incorrect in all cases as its orbit makes it unobservable to skilled amateurs.
Quote from: Star One on 09/05/2017 07:35 amWell the ORS-5 payload has just proved that argument incorrect in all cases as its orbit makes it unobservable to skilled amateurs.The fact that the people who do this as a hobby happen to fall outside the ground track of this particular satellite is irrelevant. The point is that if it can be done by individuals on a hobby budget, pretty much every country in the world could do the same thing. Although most countries in the world probably don't exceed the capabilities of seesat-l, the operators of these satellites have to assume that every serious US adversary has or could obtain this level of capability, and that the more advanced ones share this information with others.
Again that's not answering the question of why bother making the orbits of some satellites classified unless they thought there was some additional benefit to it, if there wasn't they would t do it.
Quote from: Star One on 09/06/2017 02:12 pmAgain that's not answering the question of why bother making the orbits of some satellites classified unless they thought there was some additional benefit to it, if there wasn't they would t do it.Simple answer, it takes a while to track down a satellite that has recently adjusted it's orbit, even slightly, and depending on the orbit you have seasons (periods) when you have a hard time getting good visual data. Case in point, look at the current US imaging satellites. They are tough to spot during the winter in the northern hemisphere, and tough to spot during the summer in the southern hemisphere. (Or do I have that reversed) So several months can go by between sightings.
They are tough to spot during the winter in the northern hemisphere, and tough to spot during the summer in the southern hemisphere. (Or do I have that reversed)
Actually, if you dig through the Sky and Telescope archives, about mid 1990's (maybe early 2000's) when the techniques first became available to amateurs, they had a long article with very high res pictures of Mir (ISS) (taken with an 8" Schmidt if I remember) and an interview with the photographer. In it he mentions having some sort of interesting conversation with a government entity about it. Nothing as sinister as they came knocking on his door, but a conversation, and is probably the source of the "myth".Besides, NSA is signals intelligence and not imaging....