Space Debris Observation at Nyukasayama Observatory
- Paper number
IAC-07-A6.1.11
- Author
Dr. Atsushi Nakajima, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (IAT/JAXA), Japan
- Year
2007
- Abstract
Institute of Aerospace Technology(IAT) of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency(JAXA) has prepared for space debris optical observation facility at Nyukasa-highlands, the altitude is about 1,900m, in Nagano prefecture last year. The facility has two domes, in which a 35cm Newtonian optical telescope with 2K2K CCD camera and a 25cm BRC optical telescope with 2K2K CCD camera are installed. The evaluation of the optical circumstances in this area was already done by detecting faint asteroids, about 22nd magnitude, which is over limiting magnitude of 35cm small aperture telescope. One of the most important study items in our research and development is to develop an automatic small size GEO debris detection software. In usual case, a long exposure time is necessary to detect faint object by accumulating weak light energy during the time. On the contrary, short exposure observation is necessary for GEO debris detection to avoid the influence of the fixed star streaks image. We have proposed a stacking method for detecting noise level faint GEO debris to accumulate the signals by using a number of images, for example, a hundred frames. The standard exposure time is 10 seconds and the limiting magnitude is about 17.5 by using a single shot image. By using stacked images, the limiting magnitude will be improved to 19, which is equivalent to 20cm size GEO debris. For the bright GEO satellites and debris, the 25cm telescope will be mainly used to detect and determine their orbits. For the faint debris, which are not yet observed by our facility at the moment, we have been obtaining a few tens of images on the same field-of-view to evaluate the stacked images. The Nyukasayama observatory is used to develop optical observation technologies and also to cooperate with the related organizations for space debris observation.
- Abstract document