ROSAT is down

This is just a short update to my previous post about ROSAT and its impending re-entry into the Earths atmosphere.

The Bad Astronomer just updated his ROSAT post with the following (partial) update (you can see the track of ROSATs final minutes in his post)

UPDATE 3: ROSAT fell at 01:50 UTC last night (9:50 p.m. Eastern US time), +/- 7 minutes. The track over the Earth during that time is shown here.. (more in the post).

Universe Today also has a post about the re-entry and the satellite appears to have fallen in the Indian Ocean

The latest news from dlr.de indicates that there have been no sightings of debris from the satellite.

ROSAT is coming down

As you've probably heard there's another satellite coming down soon, this one called ROSAT (ROentgen SATellite). 

ROSAT (image originally from dlr.de)

ROSAT is a (mainly) German X-ray telescope which was launched into space on June 1st 1990. It was shut down in February 1999 and has been orbiting the Earth ever since (things already in orbit tends to do that).
But now the altitude of the satellite has become low enough that a re-entry into the atmosphere is imminent.
As of this writing the altitude of the satellite is only 167.2 km (an hour ago it was 170.3 km).

And just like the previous satellite to fall down the exact time of re-entry is not know; there are simply too many unknowns to account for. But predictions can be made.
And according to the Bad Astronomer the expected re-entry is:

...right now as I write this the nominal time of re-entry is sometime on October 23 between 06:00 and 13:00 UT...

(Or 8:00 - 15:00 CEST).

I'm not yet sure where it will "fall" but fear not as the odds of debris hitting anyone is as low as 1:2000.

Setting up the telescope again

It's been a long time since I last posted anything about my telescope and the only excuse I have is that I've been busy lately.
But yesterday I finally managed to get it reassembled and attached my new camera mount to it. So far I have mounted a small compact camera to it.

Telescope with a camera mount

My first astrophotography
At first I was just playing around trying to focus while the camera is mounted (it blocks my view through the telescope for obvious reasons) and pointed the telescope at the Orion Nebula and just took a picture. It didn't work that well, so I fiddled around with the scope a bit and noticed something moving quite rapidly across the sky in my line of sight. I waited until it passed in my view and clicked the camera for a 2 second exposure.
Although very much out of focus, it was still quite cool to capture something moving on my first astrophotography :)

SL-16 R/B moving across the sky

In case you are wondering it was the SL-16 R/B (the body of a rocket launched in 1999 by the interim coalition of states from the former USSR).

Evening shots
Later that evening I decided to go out and see if I could find the recent supernova in the Pinwheel Galaxy. I tried to follow the instructions from 'Starts with a bang' but the clouds quickly filled that part of the sky and made it impossible.

So I turned my attention to Jupiter (which is very clearly visible in the nights sky towards the east).
The skies were clear enough that I could see the two large red bands above and below the equator of the planet. Unfortunately the camera I'm using wasn't able to capture that magnificent sight and the details on the planet ended up being washed out. But at least the four Galilean moons were clearly visible :)

Jupiter and the four Galilean moons

That's it for now but stay tuned for more (and much better) pictures over the next couple of weeks.

NASA´s Nanosail-D rediscovered

In November last year NASA launched a small satellite called Nanosail-D into low Earth orbit (LEO).

Image courtesy of NASA

Mission
The objective of the mission is to test the possibility of using solar sails to slow down satellites in LEO as they are taken out of commission. As it is now the satellites are required to use boosters to manoeuvre into a lower orbit where they can burn up, which means that satellites must launch with extra useless weight (the fuel required to slow down the satellite).

Instead of using boosters in the future satellites can launch with a light weight solar sail which they can use to slow down (the atmosphere is dense enough in LEO to slow down the satellites).

You might have heard of solar sails in other places but they are usually mentioned as a means of propulsion and not braking. Such as the Japanese IKARUS mission which is on its way to Venus.

Problems
The reason the title of this post is '..rediscovered' is because shortly after the satellite was supposed to be ejected from the parent vehicle (on December 6th) contact with the satellite was lost and NASA was unable to relocate it. NASA asked amateur radio users all over the world for help in locating the tiny satellite by listening for its beacon signal.

Later is was discovered that the satellite might not have ejected properly from the parent and that might have been the cause for the loss of contact. On January 19th (this year) Nanosail-D was suddenly ejected from the parent and the 3 day timer to sail unfolding could begin.

Success!
And today the sail unfolded and the very first solar sail in LEO had been deployed.
The satellite is going to stay in orbit between 2 and 4 months until it burns up in the atmosphere.