RE: [amsat-bb] Antennas on the bird

[Bruce Bostwick <lihan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Imaging AO-40 by optical means is not impossible if you have access to the
>8.2 m telescope of the ESO in Chile. With the adaptive mirror you have a
>resolution of about 0.1 arcsec, that is 20 cm in a distance og 400 km. So
>you can see bigger details of AO-40. But who has the opportunity of access
>to this telescope?
>DF 9 LC (Albrecht)

I'd say a more important question is, can it swing fast enough to 
track an object moving as fast as AO-40 is at perigee?  Most 
astronomical tracking drives can't follow sats in LEO, and AO-40 is 
going a *lot* faster when it hits LEO-like altitudes.

-- 
<BGB>
                  --... ...--  -.. .  -. ..... ...- -...
              Bruce Bostwick  N5VB  Austin, TX  Grid EM10DH
     ARRL / UT ARC / Austin ARC / Travis Co. ARES / W5YI Vol. Examiner
    http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~lihan/  mailto:lihan@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
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