Viewing Geostationary Satellites
By Pamela Hoffman
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“…until planet bound lovers go orbiting too.”
~lyrics from “Planetbound Lovers” by Julia Ecklar
You, or someone you know, may be an amateur astronomer. If you aren’t now, you can certainly join these passionate people — and pretty darned easily too!
The Sun is a fabulous target because it’s easy to find. You must protect your eyes however! The Moon is also hard to miss. Planets, nebulae, galaxies and other ‘faint fuzzies’ are fun subjects. The feeling you get when you pin down the Andromeda Galaxy for the first time is hard to beat! Communing with the stars feels like a spiritual experience, because it IS a spiritual experience. As you probably know, we are made of star stuff. Our gaze turns to the skies, whether you worship the Sun or the Moon, in our longing for ‘home.’
Something a little more rare is looking through a telescope at a geostationary orbiting satellite.
An object like this is kind of unique. For one thing, it’s not moving. Most other celestial targets you have to accommodate, as they arc across the sky from horizon to horizon from your location on Earth. Everything you see in the sky rises in the East and sets in the West. The Sun, the Moon and all the planets follow this trajectory.
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Not a geostationary orbiting satellite! They hover over a spot on the Earth and they provide signals to an area, or ‘footprint,’ ON the Earth.
“A geosynchronous orbit (sometimes abbreviated GSO) is an Earth-centered orbit with an orbital period that matches Earth’s rotation on its axis, 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds (one sidereal day).” ~Wikipedia
Pointing a telescope at these objects lets you take a break from all that tracking — whether you do it by hand or by computer.
When you look THROUGH the telescope at these satellites, the orbiter is clearly visible in the view, ideally it’s centered there, and THEN YOU SEE THE STARS STREAMING BY, BEHIND THE SATELLITE!
Have you ever watched the playback from a roller coaster zooming around on it’s tracks? You are not riding the roller coaster and yet, you get that sensation of riding a roller coaster in your stomach! On Earth, we KNOW that we are in orbit and that we are rotating and yet, we don’t FEEL these sensations. Look through a telescope at a geostationary orbiting satellite and you get a real sense of the rotation of the Earth!
I have only seen a geostationary orbiting satellite through a telescope once. My immediate reaction was a vocal ‘whoa’ and I noticed I changed my stance, to avoid ‘falling’ down!
I’d like to observe a geostationary orbiting satellite again and I recommend the experience to anyone who wants this planet bound ‘overview’ effect. You may also feel like you are a true galactic citizen!
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