Satdump, STEREO-A & Pictures of the Sun

[s-band]

STEREO-A, in heliocentric orbit, is approaching earth and is now quite close at about 11.5Mkm and will it get closer. It's signal is now strong enough to decode on 8.4GHz on a small dish For the full story see here: STEREO-A Comes Home

Here are a couple of animated GIFs from yesterday. I used a 1.2m dish, downconverter, Airspy R2 on a Pi400 running SDR++ server and Satdump on a linux box. The SNR was around 8dB except during downpours when it dropped to 5dB. The pictures are from the UV instruments. The GIFs should loop but don't seem to do that on the browser, it might be better to download them and play locally.

Satdump is amazing software and well worth exploring if you are into more unusual satellite stuff. Thanks to everyone involved.

 

[s-band]

Here's the control screen with the SDR++ ssh window, the Satdump log window and the Satdump GUI. SNR is better today without the rain clouds.

I've also attached yesterday's corona camera picture.

 

[s-band]

Now at 8.4Mkm and probably OK on a 60cm dish (I'm using 1.2m)



I finally worked out how to create a video using ffmpeg. The attached is about a week's worth of intermittent captures of the 195nm channel.

 

[Captain Jack]

Simply fascinating! How are you tracking the satellite on your dish?

 

[s-band]

Simply fascinating! How are you tracking the satellite on your dish?

Originally I fitted pulse encoders to the Pelco P&T to use with an RC2000. The motors are 110VAC so I use a variable frequency source (10-60Hz with a 500W audio module) to control the speed.

I added an absolute encoder and an inclinometer to use with an EME System - F1EHN controller. The ephemeris data comes from Horizons System The F1EHN controller drives the RC2000 but only because I haven't got around to re-configuring the motor switching form +/-36V to 5V logic. The F1EHN will also take DDE data from WXtrack - predicts satellite positions and ground path images - from David Taylor, Edinburgh for Earth orbiters. WXTrack is a bit flakey interpreting some geostationary TLEs which is a pain.

Picture shows the Pelco and dish during development.