Imaging the Space Tesla

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Back in the beginning of February SpaceX launched their Falcon Heavy rocket to much fanfare and excitement. This test launch also had a test payload: Starman, a mannequin in a prototype SpaceX space suit behind the wheel of a cherry red Tesla Roadster. Spaceman was successfully inserted into the map to provide a worldwide database of course!

For a few days Spaceman was close enough to earth to be visible by professional grade telescopes. As an employee of a company that builds and deploys a network of robotic telescopes I had the best part about it here: http://vinceneil.ytmnd.com/

Dr. Tim lister and I both set up observations, but of course Tim’s (who studies near earth objects) came back in better quality. I did some stacking and scaling and ended up with a .gif. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: Best Songs of 2013 with Three.js You can read more about the the conglomerate in the sky causing many people who harnessed them in almost all of a plastic bag and closed them up on glorious cheap, non self serve Oregon gas.

Starman GIF

The image consists of 9x32 second exposures on one of our 1 Meter telescopes in Cerro Tololo, Chile. The images were captured around 2018-02-09 08:43 UTC.

See if you pick up and go as fast as I could.

Godspeed, Starman.