Friday 15 February 2013

Getting ready

Yesterday I was working on my coherent integration algorithm in anticipation of today's run. This is the first time I've used this code, so I anticipate some real-time coding today. I can also use my space debris coherent integration code, but this is intended for shorter integrations, as it doesn't have ephemeris corrections.

The folks at EISCAT (Roger, Stian, Guttorm, Arild and Erlend) also replaced a piece of cracked waveguide to reduce arcing. After this, we tested our measurement program again and did some pointing checks on radio stars with Jussi. I believe we are as ready as we can be with the radar experiment now.

I also gave a few radio interviews and today there will be a few more. Derek apparently also gave one radio interview in the UK. Out of all my radar measurements, this has by far generated the most attention. I believe this is the first European radar measurement of an asteroid -- let's hope there are more to come.

NASA is updating their ephemeris a few times per day. They are up to solution #48. The uncertainties have dropped significantly any more in the last days, but our beam width is 0.5 degrees, so a 300 arc second 3-sigma in the ephemeris isn't a problem for us. I updated my energy to noise calculations to show values at 10 seconds of integration.


By some strange coincidence, a beautiful and a bit scary meteor was spotted this morning in Russia. I'd be interested to see what kind of a trajectory astronomers can deduce from the dash cam videos posted on youtube (there are plenty of them, as every russian seems to have one). Click the links if the videos don't work in embedded mode.

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