ATV-4 and ISS, 15 hours before docking (and Progress too)

After a few cloudy and rainy days, it miraculously cleared in the afternoon of the 14th. This allowed me a last view on the ATV-4 before docking to the International Space Station ISS.

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I observed two passes. The first was in very deep evening twilight (sun at -6 degrees altitude) at 22:56 local time (20:56 UT). ISS and ATV-4 passed almost right overhead, the ATV slightly over 2 minutes in time behind ISS and both easily visible. I had set up my video equipment, but forgot to press the "record" button....

The next pass was under a darker sky, at 00:32 local time (22:32 UT). I walked a few tens of yards to the city moat to see it (I have better view at low elevations there). ISS and ATV-4 attained a maximum elevation of 28 degrees in the S-SW. The photograph above is from that pass. Using the 2.8/17-50 mm Tamron at the 17 mm setting, I could just catch ISS and ATV in one image - with a stray old Russian military satellite as a bonus (Kosmos 1315 (1981-103A), a defunct Tselina-D ELINT launched in 1981. A Japanese H-2A r/b briefly became bright as well and is visible in some images (but not the one above).



I had also set up the video, filming from my GF's appartment. About 16 minutes before the ISS pass, I filmed Progress M-19M (2013-007A). This cargoship, now filled with trash, was undocked from the ISS a few days ago to make room for the ATV. It will reenter on June 19th. In the video above, while the Progess is passing, look for a brief bright flash just below the image center at 22:13:36. This is a flashing geostationary satellite (probably NSTAR A, 1995-044A). The video next cuts to the ISS pass 16 minutes later, followed by ATV-4 and a couple of bats in the last seconds of the video.

The image below is a stack of 28 photographs, showing ATV-4, the ISS, Kosmos 1315 (barely) and the H-2A r/b (top):

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Another fine pass of ATV-4, and objects from a recent Russian Persona launch

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Following my observations of June 5-6 (see photo's and video here) and a visual observation on June 6-7, yet another fine sighting of the ATV-4 Albert Einstein was done yesterday around local midnight. First I watched the ISS pass, followed 17 minutes later by the ATV. The image above, which is a stack of six images of 5 seconds exposure each (Canon EOS 60D + EF 2.8/24mm, 640 ISO), shows the ATV-4 ascending over the rooftops as seen from the courtyard of my home in Leiden.

I also obtained video again using the WATEC. The video below shows part of the passof the ATV, and then continues with some footage of the earlier ISS pass. While the ISS is ascending over the roof, two other objects can be seen (from 1:28 in the video onwards), chasing each other from left to right just over the rooftops, in a trajectory perpendicular to that of the ISS:



These two objects are related to the launch of Kosmos 2486, a Russian military Persona satellite, the Russian version of the US Keyhole optical reconnaisance satellites. Kosmos 2486 was launched 3.5 hours before this sighting (at 18:37 UTC on June 7th) by a Soyuz rocket from Plesetsk. These objects have been catalogued as 2013-028A and B - the B object is the leading object in the video above. This would indicate the trailing object is the Persona satellite, the leading object the upper Soyuz stage.

Bringing the ATV to the ISS: a stepped process

The ATV-4 Albert Einstein, currently on it's way to the International Space Station (see images of passes over Leiden here), does not ascend in a linear fashion. The ascend towards the ISS is in phases.

Below is a diagram showing you how the orbital altitude of the ATV-4 spacecraft has developed over the past two days and will develop, if everything goes according to plan, over the coming few days untill it docks to the ISS at the 15th. As the orbit of the spacecraft is not neatly circular but somewhat an ellipse, values for the highest point (apogee) and lowest point (perigee) of the orbit are given.

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It might surprise you, but over the past two days the orbital altitude of ATV-4 has gradually come down, not up. You can see this in the diagram above. It concerns a slight orbital altitude decrease of just a few kilometers, no more. This is because the ATV  is currently just moving in a parking orbit around earth without major manoeuvering. As a result, the orbit currently slightly decays (it is slowly pulled in by Earth as a result of gravity and atmospheric drag): it is very slightly coming down!

A major manoeuvre to counter this will occur on June 10th, lifting the spacecraft up from approximately 250 km to approximately 290 km altitude. The orbit will then slightly decay to slightly lower altitudes again, as the ATV will again be drifting. More manoeuvres raising the orbit slightly to counter this orbital decay will occur on June 12th, but the major manoeuvres will be on the 14th and 15th. These latter are the manoevres which will bring the ATV up close to the orbital altitude of the ISS (see diagram above), first bringing it up to approximately 380 km altitude, and then to about 400 to 410 km, and close to the ISS. It will be somewhat in front of the ISS initially, and move closer to the ISS as the orbit is gently raised. A complicated set of manoeuvres then will bring the ATV to the ISS for docking.

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Note: diagrams constructed using orbital data for the ATV-4 kindly provided by ESA here.

Images and video of ESA's Space Cargo Ship ATV-4 'Albert Einstein' over Leiden

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ATV-4 passing over the historic observatory of Leiden, 1:21 UT

stack of 8 images

ESA successfully launched its 4th cargoship ATV-4 Albert Einstein from Kourou last night at 21:52 UT, loaded with cargo destined for the International Space Station ISS.

Following the launch it made two visible passes over Leiden, the first of these two hours after launch at 23:47 UT (1:47 am local time) and a second in morning twilight at 1:20 UT (3:20 am local time). The sky was clear and I could observe both passes well.

I used both my Canon EOS 60D photocamera and my WATEC video camera to image the passes. Above is a photograph shot during the second pass (1:21 UT), showing the ATV descending over the old historic Observatory of Leiden. The image is a stack of 8 images of 5 second exposure each, taken in rapid succession. The lens used was an EF 2.8/24mm.

Below is a video shot during the first pass at 23:47 UT. The ATV, faint at first but then quickly becoming quite bright, can be seen ascending just right of the house in the opening shots:



Note how from 50 seconds in the video onwards, TWO objects are visible: a fainter object (about magnitude +4) is leading the ATV by a few seconds. This is the Ariane upper stage. It is also visible on the photograph below, taken with an EF 2.0/35mm lens:

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ATV-4 was very bright on both passes and easily seen by the naked eye: magnitude +1 on the first pass and +0.5 on the second. It moved quite fast, being in a low orbit at an altitude of about 280 km.

In fact, ATV-4 made a third pass this nigh only 20 minutes after launch, near 22:12 UT (00:12 local time). As it was not entirely clear whether the ATV would be in earth shadow or illuminated  during this pass (this early in the launch it is at still very low altitude, below 150 km) I did watch, but as expected it was in earth shadow and not visible.

Below are two more pictures from the 23:47 pass. One shows the ATV ascending in the west, close to the Coma berenices cluster. The second one shows it descending in the east, and shows two other (unrelated) objects: and old Russian Soyuz r/b, and the US military satellite NOSS 2-3 E.

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Tracking ESA's ATV-4 "Albert Einstein" the coming nights

If all goes well, ESA's cargoship ATV-4 "Albert Einstein" will be launched from Kourou on top of an Ariane rocket tonight at 23:52 CEST (21:52 UTC). It will dock to the International Space Station ISS on 15 June. A live webcast of the launch will be featured here.

During the 10 days it takes to get to the ISS, it will make several visible passes over Europe, starting the coming night (June 5/6). On the night of June 14/15, it will be possible to see ATV-4 and the ISS pass around the same time, closing in on each other just hours before docking.

For those of you who want to try to photograph an ATV pass themselves, I have written a tutorial, that is featured on ESA's ATV weblog.

Visible passes for NW Europe the coming night (June 5/6) occur at approximately:

* 01:47 CEST (23:47 UTC)
This is a pass that is very favourable for the UK, Netherlands and mid-Germany. In the Netherlands we will see the ATV pass right through the zenit! Here is a trajectory card (valid for Leiden, the Netherlands: elsewhere in Europe the trajectory will be different! For elsewhere in the Netherlands, the trajectory might slightly shift) and a map of the relevant groundtrack:

* 03:20 CEST (01:20 UTC)
A pass in twilight over a.o. the southern UK and France (but also visible from the Netherlands and Germany):

Please note that the spacecraft is actively manoeuvering, and this means that the listed pass times are approximate: there might be differences up to a few minutes with the real pass times.

If you want to get an accurate sky trajectory map for your own location, then Heavens-Above should have predictions available from the moment of launch. A live ground tracking application is available here (it will tell you over which part of the globe the ATV is, but not where in your sky however).

If your are able to run your own predictions (e.g. with Heavensat), then ESA has kindly made TLE's available here.

The relevant TLE for tonight (5/6 June) is:

ATV-4
1 00000U 13156A   13156.95908050  .00000000  00000-0  11891-3 0  0008
2 00000 051.6512 167.2588 0016658 269.7524 354.7951 16.02929810 00002

Depending on the illumination conditions, the ATV can reach mag. +1 and hence be easily visible by the naked eye during a favourable pass.

Belated: imaging ATV-3 late September

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I am very much belated in posting the images above: they show ATV-3 imaged by me in morning twilight of 30 September 2012. The lower of the two images was my entry to ESA's ATV photo contest and won 3rd place (earning me a nice ATV t-shirt: thank you ESA!).

This was the only morning between undocking and reentry that was not clouded (well: as you can see in the images, it wasn't exactly clear either).

The observing session in question was the last one where I was accompanied by our late cat Pippi, who died a month later.

(video) A last view of ESA's ATV-3, with ISS, FIA Radar 1 and an old Russian Soyuz upper stage

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This morning near 3:39 UTC (5:39 am local time), Europeans could witness the last visible pass of ESA's Space Freighter ATV-3 'Edoardo Amaldi' on its way to the International Space Station (ISS), less than a day away from docking to the ISS in the night of March 28/29.

I watched, photographed and filmed the pass from Leiden: footage shot with the WATEC 902H + 1.4/12mm lens, and a photograph made with the Canon EOS 450D + EF 2.0/35mm lens, can be seen above.

I got a very fine view with more than just the ISS and ATV visible. Just before the ISS became visible around 3:56 UTC a bit of  bright (mag +1) space-debris, an old Russian Soyuz Zenit upper stage crossed the sky (see first seconds of the video above, left in the FOV): 99-039B, the upper stage from the OKEAN-O launch in 1999 [edit 30/03/2012: it is a Zenit rather than a Soyuz r/b - with thanks to Ralf Vandeberg]. Next, the ISS emerged out of earth shadow eclipse near Arcturus, quickly attaining a brightness of -3 to -4. As it moved through Bootes, Corona Borealis, Hercules and into Lyra, the American military satellite FIA Radar 1 (10-046A) came into view, going the opposite direction of the ISS (nicely demonstrating that it is in a rare retrograde orbit, i.e. moves from east to west rather than west to east). As FIA Radar 1 started to descend to the west through Corona Borealis, ESA's ATV-3 came into view, again as a nice and bright naked eye object attaining about mag. 0 to +1. It followed the ISS by almost exactly 3 minutes, just a little bit too much separation alas to image the ATV and it's destination the ISS together. The photograph above (and the video) shows it together with the FIA Radar 1: ATV-3 is moving up, the FIA Radar 1 down! (note: for easthetic reasons, I photoshopped an annoying trail from the aircraft that can be seen in the video, out of the photograph).

The video ends with ATV-3 descending in the east and disappearing behind the roof of our appartement building.

I wish to thank Laurent Arzel (ESA) for providing me with predicted orbital elements with manoeuvres of ATV-3 taken into account. Some web-based satellite prediction services (and surprisingly, the German DLR in a tweet) used "old" elements from the 27th, that lead to erroneous pass times (off by over 5 minutes: these suggested the ATV was leading the ISS by 2.5 minutes, while in reality it was following by 2.5 to 3 minutes!). Thanks to Laurent's elements, I could plan for the correct situation and point some fellow amateur observers to the correct pass times.

With docking less than half a day away as I write this, our Dutch astronaut André Kuipers onboard ISS can look forward to fresh supplies of Dutch cheese soon!

Video: ATV 3 'Edouardo Amaldi', a meteor, and the ISS this morning

This morning I was up early to capture the 3:29 UTC (5:29 am CEST) pass of ESA's space freighter ATV-3 "Edouardo Amaldi". This was just before the start of twilight, so the sky was still dark and several stars can be seen on the video. The video was shot from the center of Leiden town, from the east-facing window of my girlfriend's  appartment. Camera: WATEC 902H + 1.4/12mm lens.

The ATV emerged from Earth shadow at about 38 degrees elevation in the E-SE. Initially mag. +1, it was easily visible by the naked eye, then faded as it descended towards the horizon.

The movie also features footage of a nice 3-second meteor that appeared only a few minutes before the ATV pass: as well as footage of the ISS passing the same sky area about 30 minutes before the ATV.

 Brightest star in the FOV is Altair (alpha Aquila), with the stars of the Arrow just upper left of the center, and stars of the Dolphin near the GPS clock.

Below is also a photographic image, a 6-second exposure with the Canon EOS 450D + EF 2.5/50 mm Macro lens, showing the ATV on the border of Aquila and Sagitta.

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Note: with a special "thank you!" to Laurent Arzel at ESA ATV CC-flight dynamics for providing timely orbit forecasts!

Footage of ATV 3 passing in morning twilight of March 24

The footage above shows the European cargoship ATV 3 'Edouardo Amaldi' as it passed over Leiden this morning near 4:54 UTC (5:54 am local time), deep in morning twilight (sun at less than -7 degrees elevation only). In the opening shot, Arcturus can be seen top right, and the ATV will appear from behind the chimney-pipe of the roof below.

ATV 3 was bright (magnitude 0 to -1.5) and easily visible by the naked eye. It was somewhat orangish in colour. Once past culmination, I lost it in the twilight glare to the east.

The footage was recorded with a WATEC 902H camera and a 1.4/12mm lens.

I also made some photographic pictures this morning, including this one:

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ATV 3 was launched by ESA yesterday from Kourou in French Guyana, and is on its way to the International Space Station (ISS) with supplies. I observed it yesterday morning as well, only 22 minutes after launch (see post and pictures here).

Newly launched ATV 3 cargoship in twilight

This morning at 4:34 UTC, the European Space Agency ESA launched the third Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) cargoship, ATV 3 "Edouardo Amaldi", from Kourou in French Guyana, bringing supplies to the International Space Station.

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Only 22 minutes later, around 4:56 UTC (5:56 am local time), it made a pass visible from Europe. The ATV was still connected to the Ariane upper stage at that moment. As seen from Leiden, it was a low pass at a maximum elevation of 24 degrees in the S-SE, and in deep twilight: sun at -7 degrees altitude.

Nevertheless it was easily visible by the naked eye around culmination, as a fast and steady mag. 0 to -1 object moving against a bright blue twilight background. The picture above is a 4-second exposure taken with the Canon EOS 450D + EF 2.8/24mm lens, 400 ISO.

Note added 24/03/2012: More observations from following nights, including video of a pass on the 24th, available here.

ATV-1 "Jules Verne" nice and bright

Against my expectations, it was clear this morning, allowing me the chance to observe the 04:21 UTC pass of the newly launched ATV-1 Jules Verne (08-008A), the first European cargo ship on its way to the ISS. It was launched last Saturday on Sunday night from Kourou by an Ariane 5 rocket. ATV stands for Automated Transfer Vehicle.

I watched it coming out of earth shadow at about 50 degrees altitude in Ophiuchus around 04:21:10 UTC. It was nice and bright, reaching mag. +0.5.

I shot below photograph, unfortunately suffering from some lens reflections.

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