Possible use of the 'Pi of the Sky' system in a space situational awareness program

Roman Wawrzaszek; Piotr Wawer; Marcin Sokolowski; Krzysztof Nawrocki; Robert Pietrzak; Katarzyna Malek; Marcin Zaremba; Lech W. Piotrowski

doi:10.1117/12.838751

5 August 2009 Possible use of the 'Pi of the Sky' system in a space situational awareness program

Roman Wawrzaszek, Piotr Wawer, Marcin Sokolowski, Krzysztof Nawrocki, Robert Pietrzak, Katarzyna Malek, Marcin Zaremba, Lech W. Piotrowski

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 7502, Photonics Applications in Astronomy, Communications, Industry, and High-Energy Physics Experiments 2009; 75020J (2009) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.838751
Event: Photonics Applications in Astronomy, Communications, Industry, and High-Energy Physics Experiments 2009, 2009, Wilga, Poland

Abstract

The "Pi of the Sky" system was initially created for searching of optical partners of gamma ray bursts [5,7]. The system is located in Chile and consists of two CCD cameras on a common mounting base [1]. Currently, it performs various astronomical observations [1,5,7,8]. Among others, system also records passages of satellites and fragments of Earth's artificial satellites, so called "space debris". Since now, this kind of data was identify as a disturbing transient signal and team members usually focus on identify and eliminating it. Handle of this problem is especially important, because software algorithm which search for optical companion of gamma ray bursts focus on transient phenomena events. On the other hand, comparison of the "Pi of the Sky" system parameters with different facilities which are used for space debris searching and monitoring shows, that its properties are similar to some of those systems. It means, that it should be possible, to obtain valuable data of artificial satellites motion analyzing "Pi of the Sky" data. Moreover, expected in the near future system upgraded to 6 small telescopes equipped totally with 24 CCD detectors system [1] will cover a major part of the sky (field of view of each detector equals 20 x 20 degrees) which gives possibility of visual measurements objects up to 16 magnitude. It will be an unusual advantage in the field of system categories with that size. In the paper, we would like to shortly describe a space debris community activities, present properties of selected systems which are using for space debris surveys and finally examples of observational data will be presented.

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Roman Wawrzaszek, Piotr Wawer, Marcin Sokolowski, Krzysztof Nawrocki, Robert Pietrzak, Katarzyna Malek, Marcin Zaremba, and Lech W. Piotrowski "Possible use of the 'Pi of the Sky' system in a space situational awareness program", Proc. SPIE 7502, Photonics Applications in Astronomy, Communications, Industry, and High-Energy Physics Experiments 2009, 75020J (5 August 2009); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.838751

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