Rocket booster of Progress launch
Taken by Ralf Vandebergh on February 27, 2015 @
the Netherlands
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Details:
The upper stage of the recent Progress launch passed at just 166 kilometers above the ground causing an angular speed of more then 2 degrees per second, rawly twice the angular speed of the ISS. The object was tumbling but the tumbling was too slow to be seen in these 3 frames. I have attached another observation of a Zenit rocket that was tumbling much faster and then it becomes visible while it crosses the telescope field.
Technique:
Tracking these tumbling rocket stages manually is a difficult thing to do and requires lots of experience. Not only the speed of low orbiting rockets is very high but when they are tumbling, they go off and on, dimming and brightening again when they rotate in the sunlight. In a minimum it can totally disappear in the tracking scope causes you to lose it out of field. When it appears again, you have to center it as fast as you can before it dims again, and this with an angular speed, 2 times that of the ISS.
Photographer's website:
No URL provided.
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