It is with great pleasure that we can announce official First Light at Taiaho observatory! At approximately 07:35 NZST on the 14th of February 2025, we successfully captured images of the communications laser from the Flying Laptop research satellite.
The satellite pass details were as follows:
Here, we see a sky chart overlaid with the path and the corresponding ground track of the satellite. The TLE used was:
FLP
1 42831U 17042G 25044.78514749 .00003403 00000-0 29425-3 0 9997
2 42831 97.3934 218.3107 0012109 347.9450 12.1481 14.97758332413264
Which corresponded to these orbital coefficients:
The below video shows feeds from both SOFA cameras, as well as a scope-mounted webcam and the all-sky camera footage during the pass.
We at Taiaho would like to wholeheartedly thank the DLR IKN team for their extraordinary efforts in the commissioning of Taiaho’s key instrumentation during their visit. This is the first of what will be a long campaign of experiments at Taiaho, for future passes keep an eye on our youtube channel!
