[amsat-bb] Monitoring satellite telemetry during solar eclipse

[David G0MRF]

Hi all.

1 day to go and I hope your weather forecasts are good!  

Looking at a few of the available satellites, it seems that the best opportunity for one of them passing through totality
is the AO-85 pass that begins over Alaska in the NW at 19.07 UTC and then passes down across the path of the eclipse just off the Coast of GA and FL at 19.22 UTC If you are in the South East USA then you should be able to pick up telemetry as it passes through or very close to totality..

AO-73 + EO-88  both transmit real time telemetry every 5 seconds and they see a partial eclipse. The exact percentage is
a little difficult to predict but the graphs produced on their ground station 'dashboard' software should show some 'eclipse effects'
The sun sensors on AO-73 produce a graph of log Lux against time.

If you happen to get some good results, please get a screen grab of the graph or save the tlm file. It's always good to see the effects
of these rare events on the satellites.

AO-85    19.07 to 19.27    Best at 19.22 UTC

AO-73     16.33 to 16.26   Descending pass via UT AZ CA
EO-88     18.12 to 18.24   Descending west coast

and for a satellite's eye view...    https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap990830.html

73

David  G0MRF