Re: [amsat-bb] Bootleg KEPs? (was :FW: And on a different subject)

["Louis A. Mamakos" <louie@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There's already a significant "hobby" effort to track and produce orbital
elements for spacecraft in orbit that are observed visually though a
telescope.  Some of these objects have no published elements and are 
the usual sort of classified payloads that are not publicly admitted to.

One of the the guys in my amateur astronomy club is primarily a satellite
observer.  There's a bunch of neat stuff you can see if you know where
to look, satellites "flying" in formation, etc.  The guys into this have
a whole infrastructure to compute elements based upon observations from
people all over the place.  Such is the power of the Internet to 
link together folks united in a common activity, all over the planet.

So these sorts of unofficial activities are hardly new.  It's
difficult to classify what you can go out and see by eyeball.

louie
wa3ymh

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