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USA-161 KH Image 2010/05/23(UT)

Ralf Vandebergh
R.Vandebergh

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telescopic high res images USA-161 KH

As most of you will know, the Keyhole satellites are discribed as
beeing space telescopes with similar disign as the Hubble, but only
with the instruments pointed at the Earth instead at space.

As mentioned before, this observation was part of several, managed to
obtain in steady air in the night of May 23. You may pic up the subject
'high res' images questionable, but please realize that we speak of
an object in an orbit catagory 600 km altitude, you will understand that
the visible resolution is less then the images I obtain on objects like the 
Space Shuttle and the ISS in almost halfway its altitude. For this reason I
just was surprised to have captured not only clearly the body of this
spacecraft but also signs of solar wings and even some detail on the body.



At 00:06:18 UTC, there was a short flare which I managed to capture, as
presented in the short movie. Note that all images are tracked fully
manually, so the capture of such short flare needs great tracking-
performance. But the higher orbit, and so lower apparant speed helped
certainly in this.



It appears, after the flare, (the second image at 00:06:19) we see a 
lot more of especially the solar panels, at least I hope I have identified 
the structures well. Before the flare, the panels are only visible well
on one side of the body. Although the main flare was very short, the frames
suggest, the object still was a few seconds brighter after the flare and
provided a clearer view of the satellite.

Imaging: 10inch reflector, manually tracked)

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[Ralf Vandebergh:Neighbourhood of Maastricht Netherlands]

ALPO-Japan Latest Oplanets Section	2010/06/17 [Soyuz TMA-19 and its Rocke]
	2010/05/16 [Venus Occultation]