Following Gaia
2014-03-07 00:00:00
TJO-TFRM-OAdM
On the night between March 6th and 7th, two of the telescopes placed at the OAdM (the TJO and the TFRM) observed the Gaia satellite while it was pointing its solar panels towards the Sun.
We show a video with over 700 images obtained with the TJO during almost 4 hours. Gaia can be seen as a star moving from right to left in the center of the image. The changes in brightness are related to differences in the exposure time, which ranges from 5 to 20 seconds.
We also show a sequence with 22 images obtained with the TFRM during 3.5 hours (with one hour gap due to a humidity alert). In this case, Gaia is clearly seen moving down. The exposure time of the images is 45 seconds.