Star gazing

New Satellite “Mayak” Might Light Up the Sky
By: David Dickinson | July 18, 2017
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Russia's first crowd-funded satellite, named Mayak (Russian for "beacon of light"), promises to be the “brightest object in the night sky next to the Moon.”


An artist's conception of Mayak in orbit.
CosmoMayak

The hunt is on. A Soyuz-2.1a rocket roared to life at the historic Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 14th at 6:36 UT, lofting its main payload, the Kanopus-V-IK, Russia's newest Earth-observing satellite.

But Kanopus didn't launch alone. Hitching a ride to space were 72 smaller satellites (a record-breaking payload) headed for three separate orbits. Among them was Mayak (Russian for "beacon of light"), a CubeSat of particular interest to amateur astronomers and satellite spotters.


Mayak is Russia's first crowdfunded satellite. Built around a standard 3U cubesat body measuring 34 × 10 × 10 cm, Mayak was designed by engineering students at Moscow Polytechnic University. The satellite will test an aerodynamic braking system that could de-orbit satellites without using an engine, and it comes equipped with reflectors to provide data on the satellite's visibility and distance.

To that end, the satellite is set to deploy a large tetrahedron-shaped reflector. Each triangular face is 4 m² (43 ft²) in area and should be readily visible from the ground on a twilight pass. In fact, the team claims, Mayak will be the “brightest shooting star” once unfurled with an estimated magnitude of –10, so glints from it might be almost as bright as the full Moon. Mayak could be visible in bright twilight and perhaps even during daytime passes as well.




The plan is to fly Mayak in a stabilized mode for the first four weeks, then set it tumbling on all three axes, setting off a brilliant twinkling pattern. The team's site mentions using brightness estimations from Mayak to gather information about air density at high altitude and to calibrate brightness estimations for future satellites.

Once the reflector is deployed, both solar-wind pressure and atmospheric drag will accelerate the craft's reentry. Such devices might become a standard feature on future satellites, enabling them to de-orbit shortly after their mission ends rather than adding to the growing tally of space junk in low-Earth orbit. Nanosail-D2 tested a similar technology in 2011, and another mission recently dispatched from the International Space Station, InflateSail, is currently testing the same method.


Nanosail D2 over the Netherlands.
Dr. Marco Langbroek

If it's as bright as claimed, Mayak could surpass the brightness of the famed first generation of Iridium satellites, which routinely flare up to magnitude –8. Unfortunately, the second generation of Iridium satellites currently being deployed won't flare in the same fashion.

Is Mayak a good idea? One brilliant (and short-lived) satellite could be a great way to get the public out and looking up at the night sky.

“A sky literally littered with large numbers of these objects would not be a great idea, as it would interfere with night sky integrity,” says veteran satellite tracker Marco Langbroek. “But one or two of these objects as an experiment can not do much harm.”

A Japanese start-up named Star-ALE, for example, wants to create artificial meteor showers for customers starting in 2020. In fact, ideas for placing advertising in space date back to the 1980s, though thankfully, we do not have McDonald's or Pepsi logos drifting through the night sky just yet. True story: NASA and the U.S. Air Force actually studied the idea of using large reflectors placed in space to banish night during the Vietnam War, though this, too, never came to pass.



The few satellite hunters with clear skies last night that we've heard from have all reported negative results so far, suggesting that either Mayak's reflector has yet to deploy, or it was deployed unsuccessfully. If you've got clear skies, take a look tonight and let us know what you see. We'll drop in a brief update to this post when better magnitude estimates come in.

Clear skies, and good luck on the satellite hunt!

 

No, it's fine where it is, Martin.

An update on my stuff. I've just bought a ST80 Guidescope, from an auction on e-Bay for the 12 inch SCT and had to get some rings to fit it on the OTA. Also I will be getting the LodestarX2 to fit on the ST80 to give me better autoguiding...........all that will keep my brain ticking over as I try to fit and calibrate it all

 

Well, if you look through a scope at the full Moon you come away with large black spots in your vision, as it's like looking at a Searchlight I use either a red, green, blue, yellow filter or a Neutral Density filter. I don't think it will be brighter than a star, and that brightness would depend on the time you see it, the angle of the orbit, and the position of the Sun.

 

Naah, it'll just give you the same visual effects that a bottle of your Home Brew does.

Well, I'm pretty sure it will be added, fairly soon, into the various sites that give information of what satellites will appear at a certain time, in a certain direction in your area, so that will give you a clue of where to look. I often get the silhouette of a aircraft flying "across" the Moon when I'm viewing and it does make me grin.

 

In buying and fitting astronomy equipment nothing, like Life, is straightforwardAs I mentioned in an earlier post I've just bought a Skywatcher ST80 Guidescope in an e-Bay auction and it arrived today in excellent, as new, condition. However, I have to attach it piggyback style onto my main 12 inch scope and that's proved not to be so straightforward, or as inexpensive, as I thought it would be.
I took some advice from the Astronomy Dealer on how to attach the Guidescope and bought two rings that encircle the Guidescope and then they should be attached, by screws, to either end of the main scope. Unfortunately, I failed to measure, I know, I know, the length of the Guidescope against the length of the main scope and there was no way, of using the rings as the Guidescope itself was too short to reach either end of the 12 inch scope. The Dealer did assure me that it would fit nicely but I should have checked the measurements, and didn't, so it's really my fault. I'll have to ring the Dealer tomorrow and arrange to return the rings and get a refund. Having said that I will now have to go down the more expensive route of buying a 21 inch long Dovetail bar, attaching that to the main scope, buying a mount to attach to the Guidescope which will fit on the Dovetail bar which will, hopefully, solve the problem. After that it should be at matter of calibrating the Guidescope to the main scope so that they're both seeing exactly the same thing.
Then, finally, I can buy the guiding camera to fit on the Guidescope.

 

Thanks for the thought,Martin. Yep, I'm hoping I will find the solution, but it appears that having a large scope tends to present problems..........I'll let you know how it works out.

 

Unfortunately, martin, I have used my Garage as a workshop and for storage so that's there's now no room for actually working in it
Anyway, I ordered this lot from First Light Optics so that I can attach the Guide Scope to the main scope

A Losmandy dovetail bar

A clamp for the Losmandy dovetail

Skywatcher Guidescope mount


Adapter for Guidescope Mount