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Can you pull out of the Ephemeris when Artemis in Earths shadow?
I don’t think you can; unless somebody knows otherwise!
The table is correct: the burn takes place well below our horizon. If you run the predictions past 23:50hrs. you should see it rise at about 00:07hrs (on the 3rd). I’m not sure where you got the 10 hours from!
Unfortunately this post on Seesat-L: http://satobs.org/seesat/Mar-2026/0111.html highlights a change to the mission timeline as posted on JPL Horizons. The TLI burn is now scheduled from MET 1d 01:08 for 8 minutes, i.e. April 2 23:32 – 23:40 with the spacecraft still below the UK horizon (based on a launch at April 1 22:24hrs.
Earth shadow entry is at 23:54hrs with the spacecraft at 7 degs elevation from the Sussex coast, so even an observation of a propellant dump is going to be just about impossible. A launch later in the window won’t change the visibility of the TLI burn for the UK and probably moves it into the Earth’s shadow – although perhaps a 1.5/2 hour delay moves any fuel dump back into sunlight?
Hello Grant,
You might want to look at Solar Eclipse Workbench: https://github.com/AstroWimSara/SolarEclipseWorkbench I haven’t used it myself but the underlying control software is gPhoto2 which I have used to good effect via a PERL script running on a Raspberry Pi. I can also fire my camera (Canon 70D) via an interface from the Pi to the remote shutter release socket.
The Glendale App https://aurora-alerts.uk/ is excellent; I highly recommend it.
This ATel has a high-resolution image from December 6th taken with the 8.1 metre Gemini North telescope – a 3 second exposure!
Later on the comet was much higher and it was easier to image the fragments – although I have lost track of which ones are still extant.
https://britastro.org/observations/item.php?id=20251205_160939_9cad980d2d92.png
Managed to image the comet Thursday evening just after sunset, over the English Channel.
https://britastro.org/observations/item.php?id=20251010_000150_7f5dcaef3f09.jpg
I measure it as 17.0 with Astrometrica GAIA DR3 ‘g’ band filter.
https://britastro.org/observations/observation.php?id=20250726_151349_3fdc0db3f0b5c6df
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Drifting cloud and near-full Moon severely hampered imaging this object. A stack of 16 x 2 min images through a Celestron 11, ‘L’ filter, barely shows the nova above the noise. Reference star has a V mag of 19.087 and the nova was fainter than that. Here is a screenshot from AstroArt 7.
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Did anybody record STEVE during the auroral activity? My RMS Meteor camera shows an interesting phenomenon around 21.00hrs. to the west of my location in Sussex, so somewhere over south/southwest England. My video is here: https://youtu.be/yXpZOL5TDWU STEVE, if indeed it is STEVE, appears on the lefthand side of the frame just to the left (south) of alpha Oph at az 263 deg, alt 21 deg. A few frames have been corrupted.
At 2024 October 3.956 I recorded it at about mag.14.3 with a wideband filter (L) and 13.6 (R)
https://britastro.org/observations/item.php?id=20241005_153149_2ae1ae1329d5.jpg
I have combined the video from my all-night timelapses captured by my RMS Meteor camera and another ‘NLC/Aurora’ IP camera, with a ‘sonification’ of the measurements from my fluxgate magnetometer. I leave it to the viewer to decide if there is any correlation between the video and audio!
RMS (black & white version): https://youtu.be/-0-gj4Fi2Kg
Colour version: https://youtu.be/3kdEixFE0ucI had to drastically alter the scale on my magnetometer charts to accommodate the 700 nTesla deviation on the north-south sensor!
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Alongside imaging the Sun with a telephoto lens, I plan on using a DSLR with wide-field lens to capture Jupiter, Venus & 12P. It will all be automated so if it works it works and if it doesn’t I will still have a memory of the views of chromosphere and corona through a binocular!
I managed to image the lander and the Falcon 9 rocket booster in a rare (mostly) clear sky on Sunday night (2024 February 18/19). Matched positions given Project Pluto Artsat predictions: https://www.projectpluto.com/sat_eph.htm.
https://britastro.org/observations/item.php?id=20240220_130719_dfa372ad9446.jpg
Ok, our copies must be handled slightly differently then! Same The Mail Group address and post code but mine includes Sunbury-on-Thames. My general Royal Mail deliveries are now only 2 or 3 times a week but AFAIK I still seem to get pretty much everything.
Good luck!
Apart from a bit of trouble renewing my subscription a couple of years ago when the owners changed, I have received the magazine quite regularly every month.
The bottom of my address label shows ‘UNITED KINGDOM 385-01 (*1 of 5)’ which remains the same month-to-month and may indicate that it is part of a batch of 5 copies sent to the UK and packaged by The Mail Group in Sunbury-on-Thames. How does that compare to your label, Chris?
Nick
Just about able to still image JUICE now over 1 million miles distant. I had to track the motion of the spacecraft as it was too faint for imaging at sidereal rate. Project Pluto gave a magnitude of 18.6 but I think it was a bit brighter, maybe closer to 18.
https://britastro.org/observations/observation.php?id=20230422_170616_b8fadbebb39febdd
