The second attempt for taking the earth shots with SCOPE-B camera.
The first image downloaded from SCOPE-A camera in Space via RUDAK!
RUDAK experiment command station Jim White WD0E successfully operated SCOPE A (narrow angle) and B (wide angle) digital color cameras onboard AMSAT-OSCAR-40 spacecraft in orbit and took full resolution images of the earth mostly illuminated. Enjoy Santa's view of our beautiful mother earth.
Dec. 16, 2001 Tokyo, JAMSAT SCOPE Team
Between busy schedule of GPS experiment and an attitude change, AO-40 command team made a chance for RUDAK command team and SCOPE experiment to take shots of the earth from wonderful view point in space on Dec. 15, 2001. Taking advantage of this opportunity, RUDAK command station WD0E Jim White successfully operated SCOPE cameras and took two pictures with camera-B (wide angle) and one with camera-A as its first light during 19:50 through 22:59UTC. It took six hours for Jim to download the raw uncompressed image data via 9600bps link.
The SCOPE experiment consists of two cameras Camera-A and B housed in a single module case that is mouted in the bay 2 of AO-40 satellite. They are identical except focal length of optics and their mounting orientation. Since the space craft is in spin stabilized mode, the cameras turn with the space craft. This spin causes blurring that is obvious especially in edge region of the images even with 1/10 second of exposure time. Also timing difference between odd and even fields makes blurring more significant. They are sample in different sequence. Following images have been processed to reduce this blurring by removing even fields then complementing them with adjacent odd field data.
Software development continues at the SCOPE team. Hiroyuki Ohata JM3MAJ is working on script execution mode that can semi-automate and schedule picture taking process. This software module may be tested on the next opportunity.
| PICTURE | CAMERA | DATE TIME | MA | ALTITUDE | EXPOSURE |
| #0100 | B (wide) |
2001/12/15
19:50 UTC | 82 | 53,000 km | 0.100 sec |
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| In this picure, the most of N and S America is illuminated except northern Canada and Alaska. The shadow is in the upper right quadrant and just over the top of the earth. /WD0E Jim |
| PICTURE | CAMERA | DATE TIME | MA | ALTITUDE | EXPOSURE |
| #0101 | B (wide) |
2001/12/15
21:33 UTC | 105 | 57,600 km | 0.125sec |
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| I took a second picture with the B camera, this time with an exposure of .125 seconds. This was at about MA 105 and an altitude of about 57.6 k km. /WD0E Jim |
| PICTURE | CAMERA | DATE TIME | MA | ALTITUDE | EXPOSURE |
| #0102 |
A
Narrow |
2001/12/15
21:33 UTC | 125 | 58,700 km | 0.125sec |
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| At 2259 I took a pic with the A camera. Exposure was .125 seconds, range about 58.7k km and MA 125. This was the optimum time during this orbit to get the earth in the frame of the narrow camera. /WD0E Jim |
AO-40
1 26609U 00072B 01342.40370237 -.00000048 00000-0 10000-3 0 1807
2 26609 6.6079 139.7874 7951867 358.2314 359.9262 1.25597182 5091
images processed by JA6XKQ
Tak Okamoto JA2PKI
JAMSAT SCOPE Team
Copyright (C) 2001 JAMSAT All rights reserved |
