The Chang’e 5 T-1 (not DSCOVR) booster going to hit the Moon: a video – 7 Feb. 2022
We imaged the Chang’e 5 T-1 booster again, this time making a nice time-lapse, despite the serious interference from the lunar light: enjoy!
The Chang’e 5 T-1 booster: 7 Feb. 2022.
IMPORTANT UPDATES: this space debris is now considered to be connected with the Chinese Chang’e 5-T1 launch!
The animation above comes from 268, single, 4-second exposures, remotely taken with the “Elena” (PlaneWave 17″+Paramount ME+SBIG STL-6303E) robotic unit available at Virtual Telescope. The telescope tracked the apparent motion of the booster, so it looks like a sharp dot, with surrounding stars moving on the background. East is up, South on the left.
There was a VERY strong Moon interference, the booster was in the same spot of the sky as our natural satellite and grabbing it was quite hard. As we can see, the booster is blinking, as it is tumbling with a period of about 90 seconds.
At the imaging time, the Chang’e 5 T-1 booster was about 190.000 km far away, 50% of the lunar distance.
Tomorrow we will share its flyby LIVE: check it out!
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