Video from one of the pros in France:
hello, on new year's day morning I have taken a video of the last passage of Phobos-Grunt over France. The solar panels look deployed but they are in the opposite direction of the Sun.
hello, on new year's day morning I have taken a video of the last passage of Phobos-Grunt over France. The solar panels look deployed but they are in the opposite direction of the Sun.The video and all details are on this page: http://legault.perso.sfr.fr/phobos-grunt.html(including notes about reliability of images of very small objects with a mention to Ralf Vandebergh's images already mentioned in this thread).This will be nice fireworks for the ones who will see it falling (if there are)!regards
Quote from: Thierry Legault on 01/05/2012 09:46 amhello, on new year's day morning I have taken a video of the last passage of Phobos-Grunt over France. The solar panels look deployed but they are in the opposite direction of the Sun.Great picture; it backs up a report in the previous thread where it was said that FG kept reversing its alignment relative to the sun every time it was over Earth's night-side.
Quote from: Thierry Legault on 01/05/2012 09:46 amhello, on new year's day morning I have taken a video of the last passage of Phobos-Grunt over France. The solar panels look deployed but they are in the opposite direction of the Sun.Welcome to the forum Thierry! I, like many others here, have appreciated the amazing photos you take.
However, it is not clear that this supports any reversing of FG's orientation. Do you have a link to where that was discussed? Trailing the solar panels looks like an aerodynamically stable orientation, with the mass forward and the drag behind. The image shows the orientation clearly, but it is only one point in time. We only know that it was the other way, facing the Sun, a few weeks ago. How one gets frequent reversing from that is not obvious.
Many thanks for your welcome, I really appreciate!Quote from: Comga on 01/05/2012 01:42 pmHowever, it is not clear that this supports any reversing of FG's orientation. Do you have a link to where that was discussed? Trailing the solar panels looks like an aerodynamically stable orientation, with the mass forward and the drag behind. The image shows the orientation clearly, but it is only one point in time. We only know that it was the other way, facing the Sun, a few weeks ago. How one gets frequent reversing from that is not obvious.of course I don't know if this orientation is permanent, and if so if it's towards the Sun or towards the atmosphere because of aerodynamics. What I can just say is:- thanks to a very precise and specific orientation of the telescope mount with regard to the orbit, the movement of the satellite remains strictly horizontal in the image (from left to right) during the whole passage- the Sun is on the right side- the 80 seconds of the video shows no change of orientation, allowing to conclude that there is no fast tumbling and that if there is a rotation, it is slow (the part of the orbit corresponding to the passage may be considered as straight)What elements allow to say that there were a reversing and that the solar panels were correctly oriented at a moment?
You should monetize somehow your work. At least to get a Meade MAX 20" ACF.
Your exquisite imagery shows that PG was stable for the duration of the pass. (Did you align the polar axis of your telescope to the orbit normal to prevent image rotation?)
Because PG communicated with Perth at some point (Nov?), it must have been oriented to the Sun to get power.
Quote from: Comga on 01/05/2012 04:59 pmBecause PG communicated with Perth at some point (Nov?), it must have been oriented to the Sun to get power.isn't there any battery that powers the probe before deployment of the solar panels?
