Geostationary Satellite over East Africa Observed from Kitt Peak, Arizona
Livingston, William
Geo-stats are geostationary communication satellites in nearly circular orbits, in the equatorial plane of the Earth, and with an orbital period of one sidereal day. If these three conditions are met, an artificial satellite will be stationary above the Earth. They are usually invisible to the unaided eye (limit of magnitude 6), since the geo-stat's average brightness is magnitude 12. At night, stars will trail through a fixed camera time exposure of this scene. We have learned how to photograph them using a fixed simple camera from Kitt Peak Mountain in Arizona. We give examples from 30 years of annual observations with identifications from the European Space Agency. One example is over East Africa?yes, seen from Arizona.</p>
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