[Laser] LEDs on Fitsat-1

[Tim Toast]

It will be interesting to know if you can hear anything Stuart. 
I know there should be something audible, maybe all kinds of 
noises in addition to the normal scintillations. An astronaut 
tapping on the wall or solar pannel support etc.
As for Fitsat, if it's visible to the naked eye then a similar 
array on the ground would be just as visible to the satellite - 
as long as it's dark enough to give the same contrast (ground 
station in the dark). 
I imagine most people can keep a one degree circle FOV centred on 
the ISS or Kitsat in binoculars (7 degree FOV). They might need 
to be seated to do it consitantly. Standing with some practice.

 
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2012 16:04:41 -0400
> From: stuart.wisher at talktalk.net
> Subject: Re: [Laser] LEDs on Fitsat-1
> To: laser at mailman.qth.net
> Message-ID: <8CF3F012FA653E0-AF4-88BC at webmail-vfrr04.sis.aol.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> Tim,
> 
> 
> It may interest readers to know that the satellite is
> effectively in the same orbit as the ISS (it will
> increasingly trail behind it when released I believe), so at
> 400km altitude, it is effectively in a low earth orbit. At
> my location, NE England, 55 degrees north, the ISS itself is
> only visible for five minutes per orbit anyway. Given that
> the whole satellite is a cube of 10 cm on a side (just 4
> inches) it is a minor miracle that 200W can be supplied for
> as much as 3 mins at a time. The satellite is in a 51.6
> degree orbit meaning that it only ever gets to a point 400km
> above 51.6 degrees north before going southwards again. Even
> this nearest approach means that my location is over 500km
> slant range to the nearest approach.
> 
> 
> I am at present trying to catch one of these "near
> approaches"  of the ISS on my baseband receiver to see
> if the reflected sunlight (which I can see with my naked
> eye) is modulated by vibration of the ISS structure as it
> has astronauts moving around in it, motors and robot arms
> running etc. Using my principle that "if you can see it, you
> can recover a signal from it" I am sure that the optical
> signal from reflected sunlight is detectable, since I have
> already detected scintillation noise from planets and bright
> stars.
> 
> 
> Stuart, G8CYW