brainwagon

Tonight the amateur satellite AO-51 made an evening pass that was almost directly overhead, and was sending a congratulatory message for Apollo 11, along with a slow scan TV image. I managed to record it, although not the greatest quality, using my little Yaesu VX-3R and my Arrow antenna. Here are links to the recording as well as the four tries at the SSTV image:

July 20th, 6:40PM recording of AO-51 over CM87

Here was the pass as predicted by my Python code (times are in UTC):

  01:39:06  +0.0° 165.4° ? 12.8°N 115.9°W - AOS 696.4
  01:40:00  +3.6° 165.4° ? 16.1°N 116.6°W -     695.9
  01:41:00  +8.3° 165.5° ? 19.7°N 117.4°W -     695.6
  01:42:00 +14.2° 165.4° ? 23.3°N 118.3°W -     695.6
  01:43:00 +22.4° 165.3° ? 27.0°N 119.1°W -     695.8
  01:44:00 +34.9° 165.0° ? 30.6°N 120.1°W -     696.2
  01:45:00 +55.9° 163.8° ? 34.2°N 121.0°W -     696.9
  01:46:00 +88.1°  99.1° ? 37.8°N 122.1°W -     697.8
  01:46:01 +88.2°  80.1° ? 37.8°N 122.1°W - MAX 697.8
  01:47:00 +57.1° 349.6° ? 41.4°N 123.2°W -     698.9
  01:48:00 +35.9° 348.3° ? 45.0°N 124.4°W -     700.3
  01:49:00 +23.3° 348.0° ? 48.5°N 125.7°W -     701.9
  01:50:00 +15.1° 348.0° ? 52.1°N 127.2°W -     703.7
  01:51:00  +9.1° 348.0° ? 55.7°N 129.0°W -     705.8
  01:52:00  +4.4° 348.1° ? 59.2°N 131.0°W -     708.0
  01:53:00  +0.4° 348.3° ? 62.7°N 133.4°W -     710.4
  01:53:06  +0.0° 348.3° ? 63.0°N 133.7°W - LOS 710.7

And here are the resulting SSTV images as decoded with Multiscan under Mac OS X:

Addendum: I played back the recording with some adjusted settings, and got this picture (somewhat better):