The secretive X-37B #Spaceplane #OTV 8 (brightest trail) passing over my house in Leiden in twilight about half an hour ago. Second fainter trail is unidentified object in a higher orbit, unrelated to OTV 8. Canon EOS 80D + Samyang 1.4/35 mm at F2.0, 4 sec, 800 ISO.

OTV-8 has just passed my camera. It was 2 seconds early. @marcolangbroek.bsky.social @dutchspace.bsky.social

The X-37B spaceplane OTV 8 earlier this evening from Leiden, the Netherlands:

Last night the Spaceplane X-37B, OTV-8 was observed. It appeared super bright. @marcolangbroek.bsky.social @dutchspace.bsky.social

Last night, several satellites of the Transporter 14 launch were optically observed. For more information see the @satnogs.bsky.social forum: community.libre.space/t/transporte...

Update: looks like the launch-pad survived !

I observed the #NROL69 payload (only one found so far), USA 498, earlier this evening, in a 64-degree inclined orbit not far from my search orbit. Footage (from Leiden, the Netherlands)

Have just observed #NROL-69, in a 64° inclined orbit. Thanks to the seesat members for finding it! @marcolangbroek.bsky.social @tomppa77.bsky.social

Great analysis of Scott, comparing my Doppler data to his GMAT model of the scheduled IM2 landing!

Just observed the Moon landing of @intuitivemachines.bsky.social #Athena #IM2 with the Discovery Dish pointed at the moon! The Doppler shows a hard kink then gets weak, and suddenly settles to a Moon speed Doppler! 😃

Received a nice Doppler curve of Athena #IM2 of @intuitivemachines.bsky.social. I matched a Astropy/Poliastro model to it, showing an altitude of 105km. The complete orbit is visible and it is currently not hiding behind the moon. It appears to be flying circles around the moon seen from Earth.

Observed Athena #IM2 of @intuitivemachines.bsky.social again today. It was also groundlocked to India. Ignored the trajectory correction of march 1 and fitted the orbit.

With the #BGM-1 lander from @firefly-aerospace.bsky.social now safely on the surface of the Moon, we've had some time to take a closer look at the @radiotelescoop.bsky.social's observation of the #BGM-1 signal during the landing, which shows several events during the landing sequence.

Tracking the @firefly-aerospace.bsky.social Blue Ghost MIssion 1 #BGM1 lunar landing with @radiotelescoop.bsky.social. The effects of the descent burn are becoming visible in the Doppler data.

Also took a look at @firefly-aerospace.bsky.social Blue Ghost with the Discovery Dish. It will land on the Moon tomorrow! The Doppler was fitted nicely on my Astropy/Poliastro model. Maybe not as accurate as GMAT, but it fits automatically! 😃

Observed Athena of @intuitivemachines.bsky.social on its way to the Moon. Got Doppler data on two days, and it matches nice on a fitted TLE, which was found at the @satnogs.bsky.social forum. Thanks @coastal8049.bsky.social for the hints to the GS.

Trying to see the signal of Intuitive Machines 2, with the Discovery Dish and @aang23.satdump.org Satdump. @amsat-dl.org and @radiotelescoop.bsky.social posted nice confirmations, just when I needed it! See the little 2 dB spike on the left of the big DC-spike.

Observed Blue Ghost again and got a full orbit of Doppler data. It looks like it is not hiding behind the moon anymore.

Used the Discovery Dish to receive FireFly's Blue Ghost Moon lander. It has performed a burn to lower its orbit. Compared the Doppler curve to the updated GMAT model! Under supervision of snowman 'Olaf'. 🧵

Last night at 03:45UTC a Falcon 9 rocket body re-entered the Earth's atmosphere over Europe. My all sky camera caught it breaking up into several pieces and leaving luminous trails. This Falcon 9 launched Starlinks on February 1st, and apparently the upper stage did not de-orbit after launch.

I have observed Blue Ghost for 3 nights and compared the Doppler to a GMAT model. 🧵 Last nights signal is on the edge of my detection level. Find the signal in the noise! I am afraid I cannot receive it any longer as the Moon gets lower on the horizon.

Received a nice Doppler curve of Blue Ghost orbiting the Moon.

Blue Ghost LOI last night gave some fun! I measured the Doppler and see it starts to deviate from the TLE of Bill Gray. This is probably not the burn, but a result of the Moon pulling which is not modelled very accurately in SDP4. 🧵

Fresh data showed a RMS of 44Hz. Not bad, not perfect. Fitting reduces to 26Hz. I am happy with my guess! 😀

Compared my guesstimated TLE to the Doppler observation of last two nights. The RMS error is 29 Hz. I also tried @coastal8049.bsky.social 's latest TLE and that also showed 29 Hz. The lowest possible RMS I can get is 26 Hz by fitting the elements. My guess was not so bad! Need more data to confirm!

Have been monitoring Blue Ghost past week, and fitted the TLE to match my Doppler measurements. Last night it was not visible for me. It should have made its TLI burn at perigee to change the orbit to go to the Moon. 🧵

A fresh plot of Starshield satellites shows 8 orbital planes. Previously I had counted 7. We keep discovering more of them!

With the help of @eelkevisser.bsky.social I was finally able the receive Blue Ghost. A 5 turn LHCP helix on a broomstick into a Nooelec wideband LNA, sysmocom S-band filter, Nooelec downconverter and Airspy R2. Pretty awesome.

Have been monitoring Blue Ghost since launch. 🧵 Just after its perigee a few nights ago, it took an interesting sky path, and also the Doppler showed a steep curve, as it was relatively close to Earth and moving away on its elliptical orbit!

It turns out my little setup performs way better then expected! Scott confirms, that I noticed the A1M burn. I had assumed this on less accurate TLEs, but his GMAT model confirms it! Thanks Scott, for showing us all the analysis that is possible! 😀

Bill Gray has published 2 TLEs for the Blue Ghost/Hakuto-R launch, based on measurements in 30h on the 20th and 21st. I compared them to my Blue Ghost Doppler data of these dates: 99999 - A11hSI1: 0.759 kHz 2251.152998 MHz 99998 - A11hSI4: 0.030 kHz 2251.148697 MHz The A11hSI4 is the best match:

The Space Track TLE of Blue Ghost of the 15th, is not so accurate as can be seen in the Doppler plot over 6 nights. One cause, is that at/after 4 nights Blue Ghost fired its engine to change the orbit to raise perigee.

Blue Ghost's Doppler curve. It has made a burn to raise perigee, but the TLE is of the 15th and hasn't been updated. I don't see a deviation. Maybe my Doppler resolution is too low, or it might take a while to become notable.

Last night Blue Ghost was received again, while in ground lock to Maspalomas, Gran Canaria. It is ~320000 km away. More on the orbit. 🧵

Using Herren's branch of STRF allows to plot the doppler taking into account the ground lock. As noted by @coastal8049.bsky.social Blue Ghost Mission 1 was locked to Maspalomas Station, Gran Canaria. Now we see the signal nicely following along the curve!

Third night of Blue Ghost Mission 1 monitoring. The signal fade starting ~01:15 matches the @amsat-dl.bsky.social Youtube live stream, confirming the reception. Range ~300000 km. Doppler difference is due to a ground station lock.

Monitored Blue Ghost Mission 1 last two nights, using a small 3.5 Turn helical antenna. First with RHCP, but the space craft is using LHCP. Still some signal was visible when it passed the antenna, and roughly followed the doppler curve. 🧵

Plotting the orbits of all Starshield satellites, to get a sense of their coverage and orbital plane distribution.