[Laser] optical satellite link video

[Tim Toast]

hi all,
This is old news but i don't think it was ever posted here. This is 
a video from September 2009 of the Optical Inter-orbit Communications
 Engineering Test Satellite "KIRARI" (OICETS)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns-ib7XcOCM

and a web article on it: http://www.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/oicets/index_e.html

When i fist saw the video, i thought the scintillating light from 
the satellite was a return reflection of the up-link beam, as from 
a retro-reflector, but apparently it is actually the on-board 
satellite laser. A few times during the test, the beam coming from 
the satellite stops then restarts. I don't know if this is from a 
tracking error where the incoming beam misses the observatory, or 
if it is being turned off intentionally. Notice the video camera is 
only seeing a few stars, so it is not in some super-sensitivity mode. 
It could be infrared though. Also it looks like the uplink beam is 
coming from a relatively small lens and not a large telescope. At 
any rate it's an impressive video.. i thought it was worth a 
posting.

-toast