Re: [amsat-bb] Laser Satellite Comms

[Franklin Antonio <antonio@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 06:31 PM 3/1/99 -0500, Dr Thomas A Clark (W3IWI) wrote:
> it produces a diffraction limited
> "glint" reflection. ...
>  ~1/40000 radians = 5 arc seconds. On the ground, the
> "spot
> size" will be about 10 meters in diameter.

Oops.  You're right.  My calculated spot size was too small, as
I did the calc with straight geometry and forgot to consider
diffraction.  


> If the satellite is spinning at ~1 RPM, it
> will spinning at an angular
> rate of (3600 arcsec/degree)*(360 degrees/rev)/(60 sec/rev) =
> 21600 arcsec/sec, so the 5 arcseconds "glint" is swept out by
> the 
> mirror in 5/21600 = 230 microseconds.

Aren't you missing a factor of 2 here?  The spot spins around the
disco twice as fast as the disco ball spins.  5/(21600*2) = 115
microseconds.

In any case, I agree with your conclusion.