Minitrack Optical Tracking Systerm (MOTS) , Island Lagoon

 

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Bruce Window worked at Minitrack, Island Lagoon, Woomera between June 1962 and August 1964.

The Minitrack Optical Tracking System

Minitrack-MOTS-Camera.jpg

The MOTS (Minitrack Optical Tracking System) Camera was an astrographic camera which took full plate glass film of –

(1) satellites bright enough to capture, e.g. Echo-1 and Echo-2, and

(2) calibration aircraft beacon flashes.

[MOTS had a 40" focal length with an 8" aperture and used 8" x 10" photographic plates.]

Photo: Bruce Window.

 

Island Lagoon

Bruce Window examines a MOTS (Minitrack Optical Tracking System) photographic plate.

Scan: Jan Delgado.


Island Lagoon

Bruce Window writes:

“On one of the many passes of Echo 2 that I photographed on the MOTS, I attached my 35mm Pentax camera to the MOTS telescope body (which was moving at sidereal rate) and took a slide image of Echo 2.

If it had been a MOTS image, the bright streak across the sky would have been bumped to insert the Serial Decimal time code. My camera was held steady on the MOTS camera body and thus the track of Echo2 is smooth and continuous but the stars are (technically) just spots of light due to the sidereal rate drive.”

Echo 2 had a designation of 1964-004A and was launched on 25th January 1964.

Large, Larger.

Photo: Bruce Window.


Island Lagoon

This 1963 photo of the MOTS setup at Island Lagoon is courtesy of Ed (Ned) Kelly.

Copy via Bruce Window. Photographer unknown.
Image restoration by Colin Mackellar.

Large, Larger.

Island Lagoon

This 1963 photo of the MOTS Telescope and Camera at Island Lagoon is courtesy of Bruce Window. Photographer unknown.

Island Lagoon

Minitrack and the MOTS Hut, looking North East, 1963.
Photo: Bruce Window.