Andrew Jolley, Royal Australian Air Force, Gregg Wade, Royal Military College of Canada, Donald Bedard, Royal Military College of Canada
Keywords: Space situational awareness, photometry, geostationary satellites
Abstract:
Although broadband photometry has been used to infer information about artificial satellites since soon after the launch of Sputnik 1, the development of photometric techniques for non-resolved space object identification or characterisation has been hampered by the large number of variables involved. Many individual studies, and some long ongoing experiments, have used costly metre-class telescopes to obtain data despite other experiments demonstrating that much more flexible and affordable small aperture telescopes may be suitable for the task. In addition, due to the highly time consuming and weather dependent nature of obtaining photometric observations, many studies have suffered from data sets of limited size, or relied upon simulations to support their claims. With this in mind, an experiment was conducted with the aim of determining the utility of small aperture telescopes for conducting broadband photometry of satellites for the purpose of non-resolved space object identification and characterisation. A 14 inch Celestron CG-14 telescope was used to gain multiple night-long, high temporal resolution data sets of six active geostationary satellites. The results of the experiment cast doubt on the efficacy of some of the previous approaches to obtaining and analysing photometric data. It was discovered that geostationary satellite lightcurves can vary to a greater degree than has generally been recognised, and colour ratios vary considerably with changes in the illumination/observation geometry, making it difficult to use colour for satellite discrimination. Evidence was also detected of variations in the spectral energy distribution of sunlight reflected off satellite surface materials, which could have implications for surface material characterisation and techniques that aim to separate satellite body and solar panel contributions to the total observed spectra.
Date of Conference: September 15-18, 2015
Track: Poster