Geo-stationary satellites

[Rosencratz]

I went out with friends recently to take some timelapses of the stars and we got to talking about satellites.

One of them raised the subject of Geo-stationary satellites asking if they must appear stationary in the sky.

As a result i've hunted down a time-lapse that exhibits apparent geo-stationary satellites.

This only leaves me with the question of where abouts in the sky would you expect to find them? In the south of the UK?

I imagine some enlightened folks round these parts might know. I've not noticed them in stellarium or similar but maybe they're the odd ones i've see that don't have trajectories?

[brucen]

There are quite a few listed on this site which is used for aligning satellite dishes. http://www.uksatelli...-calculator-v2/

[faulksy]

i found 2 a while ago as you say the south i thought they were ufo,s due to them moving south to east but it was obviously the back ground stars moving south to east. i was quite chuffed at the time

[Rosencratz]

There are quite a few listed on this site which is used for aligning satellite dishes. http://www.uksatelli...-calculator-v2/

Thankyou for that link but I think i'd literally have to go through hundreds of selections before I found one I think i'd be able to view from my location.

In retrospect I guess the most logical place for them would be over land so... being in the south, facing north is probably best, which is likely why i've never seen one as I usually shoot off the south coast

[TheNorthernMonkey]

In order to be apparently stationary, they will need to be located over the equator, otherwise their orbit would make them occilate north and south.

Remember that they are still orbiting the earth, just at the same speed as the earth rotates.

You can work out how many degrees south of you that you need to look from your current lattitude.

Geo-stationary satellites will either be over central europe, to give coverage for all of europe, or West, over the Atlantic, to relay signal between europe and the US

[lukebl]

Almost all the geostationary setellites orbit around the equator at an altitude of around 38,000 kilometres, so are all roughly in the same orbit. The effect of parallax, means that from the UK they mostly appear in a line at a declination of around 7 degrees south, and there are absolutely loads of them. There was a thread about this a few months ago. Here's an animation showing the area around Saturn and all satellites above mag 10. The green blobs are mostly geostationaries. This was using the Sky Safari Pro app, which is absoutely brilliant.

[faulksy]

Almost all the geostationary setellites orbit around the equator at an altitude of around 38,000 kilometres, so are all roughly in the same orbit. The effect of parallax, means that from the UK they mostly appear in a line at a declination of around 7 degrees south, and there are absolutely loads of them. There was a thread about this a few months ago. Here's an animation showing the area around Saturn and all satellites above mag 10. The green blobs are mostly geostationaries. This was using the Sky Safari Pro app, which is absoutely brilliant.

it was me, i gave you exact ra and dec settings also times. i thought it was a ufo a few thought it was space debris

[brucen]

Thankyou for that link but I think i'd literally have to go through hundreds of selections before I found one I think i'd be able to view from my location.

In retrospect I guess the most logical place for them would be over land so... being in the south, facing north is probably best, which is likely why i've never seen one as I usually shoot off the south coast

The Astra satellites are used by Sky so they should be visible from your location. There are a bunch of them together which could make them easier to spot. Check the way the dishes point where you are and that gives an idea. They should be 28 degrees east of south but I have no idea of the elevation. When I fitted my dish I just nudged up until I got the signal!

[Rosencratz]

Thank you all. You've prompted me to push Stellarium a bit harder. (Mostly due to recoiling at the price of Sky Safari... maybe next month)

Appears you just have to configure the satellite options to get the geo-stationary ones to s how and, as it appears, they're likely disabled due to the sheer volume of them. Looks like i've been pointed the right way all along but I guess they're just not catching the light while I'm shooting or glinting too dimly to shine through the noise of my camera. I shall have to persevere.

[keithatrochdale]

There is some good software out there called SatScape which used to track the weather satellites.

It is the satellite version of stellerium.