Dirk Ewers - Space Shuttle STS131 Discovery on April 19., 2010

Space Shuttle STS131 Discovery on April 19., 2010  


Data Shuttle
Two Line Elements (TLE):
1 36507U 10012A 10108.70378060 .00083170 00000-0 53119-3 0 381
2 36507 51.6462 175.8917 0007821 191.6695 311.6146 15.75599861 2099
Elevation: 85° North! (Maximum)
Distance: 351km (Minimum)
Size Shuttle : 27,2m x 23,8m = 15,98" x 13,99" (theoret.Max.)
Speed: 27.650km/h
Time: 03:19 UTC, 2010 04 19
Observing Place: Hombressen near Kassel

Data ISS
Two Line Elements (TLE):
1 25544U 98067A 10108.75973538 .00025017 00000-0 16841-3 0 9995
2 25544 51.6485 175.6066 0003771 185.6315 272.8840 15.74985951654111
Elevation: 85° North! (Maximum)
Distance: 352km (Minimum)
Length of Truss Structure (S6/S5/S4/S3/S1/S0/P1/P3/P4/P5/P6) : 100,4m = 58,83" (theoret.Max.)
Speed: 27.650km/h
Time: 03:21 UTC, 2010 04 19
Observing Place: Hombressen near Kassel





After undocking of Shuttle Discovery from the International Space Station
on 17. of April the space glider had reached a distance of nearly 1.000km.

The artificial satellites are circling the Earth in an orbit of 340km height with
a speed of 27.000km per hour. That's why the ISS only two minutes after Shuttle
Discovery reached it's highest point in the morning skies.

So under these circumstances it was a real challenge to record both objects
near their culmination :

After successful tracking the Shuttle, fast stop of data flow to the mount, change
to orbital data of ISS, start tracking again and immediate manual corrections it
was possible to get the International Space Station into the field of view, too.

In the 240 second widefield exposure parts of the parallel flight paths are visible,
as well as the swiveling mount with telescopes, computers and observation monitor.






See story and pictures on :

Spaceweather.com



Videosequence of this pass (330 still frames)

VIDEO AVI DIVx5 (1.2MB)



If the video does not work you can download the video codec here for free :
DIVx5-Codec