[ATMoB-discuss] satellite tracking with Celestron or Meade scope and mount

[Bert Halstead]

I recall that Ron Dantowitz, now of the Clay Center, was the Jedi Master 
of doing exactly this.  He was tracking low Earth orbit satellites on 
Meade telescopes even more than ten years ago.  According to the Clay 
Center Web site, he can be reached as rdantowitz at dexter.org.

The Meade Web site at http://www.meade.com/gallery/09a.html has an 
impressive picture of the space shuttle docked to Mir that Ron took 
using this setup.

-Bert


Michael Aramini wrote:

> A colleague from Lincoln Lab would like to be able to do computer
> control of a Celestron or Meade mount with a scope on it to do real
> time tracking of satellites in low Earth orbit.
>
> He has a software model of that can predict the satellite's apparent
> motion, but wanted to know if it is feasible to low level commands to
> the mount to tell it where to point when, but wanted to know if such
> mounts could respond to such commands quickly and precisely enough to
> track satellites in real time.
>
> A secondary question is whether a Celestron or Meade scope which was
> designed primarily for visible light use can reasonably be used for
> near IR.
>
> -Michael
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject:     Telescope State of the Art
> Date:     Mon, 2 Apr 2007 10:04:05 -0400
> From:     Flanagan, Robert <flanagan at ll.mit.edu>
> To:     Aramini, Michael <aramini at ll.mit.edu>
>
> Mike,
>
> I’ve been asked to develop a satellite tracking system that tracks
> during the day. I’m planning on connecting an InGaAs near IR detector to
> a Celestron or Meade telescope.
>
> The big problem is the tracking end of things. I need to be able to
> control the telescope with a computer so I need to receive mount encoder
> information and send instructions to the mount to move.
>
> Based on your experience in ATM, do you know if the mounts on the
> high-end commercial telescopes can be programmed this way?
>
> Thanks for your advice on this.
>
> Regards,
>
> Bob
>
>
> Dr. Robert W. Flanagan, Jr.
> Group 91
> MIT Lincoln Laboratory
> 244 Wood Street
> Lexington, MA 02420-9108
> (781) 981-0453
>
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