Showing posts with label Navid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Navid. Show all posts

Friday, 10 February 2012

The Iranian satellite Navid photographed

On February 3, 2012, Iran succesfully launched its third satellite into orbit, Navid (2012-005A), using a Safir rocket.

This evening was clear and I had a 86 degree pass of this new Iranian satellite. It is very small (a 50 kg semi-kube, only 50 x 60 cm large!) and hence faint. Using the 1.4/85mm SamYang lens, I nevertheless managed to photograph it, catching it as a faint trail just south of the alpha Persei star group on a 5 second exposure:

click image to enlarge



This is probably the smallest object in orbit I have ever photographed.

Navid is reportedly an imaging satellite, taking photographs from a 250 x 375 km orbit. At the time the photograph above was taken, it was at 316 km altitude.