Thread by @coastal8049

Good evening all, nothing new to report here. Just getting acquisition of signal on @LRO_NASA now. Shouldn't be too much longer before the moon completely clears the trees and we can begin listening seriously.

The 3m dish is trained on the moon now. China's Chang'e 5 test mission orbiter is load and clear!

I use @LRO_NASA and CE5T1 as alignment references to ensure the large dish is aimed properly as it's field of view is rather narrow.

First detection of the #Chandrayaan2 orbiter this evening. All looks normal there. #Queqiao is also visible down the band a bit. So lots of space traffic around the moon this night.

For those wondering, I have multiple radios recording data so as I show you interesting things away from #VikramLander's frequency I'm still recording there.

Here’s some of the hardware used. A pile of raspberry pi computers do some of the heavy lifting for tracking the antennas.

Here’s the 3m dish antenna. A retired TVRO antenna.

Here’s me making some parts of it.

Here's a clip of #Chandrayaan2 orbiter from a few moments ago. Good signals from her this evening.

Yes that's a pickup truck tire jack I used for declination control.

The 3m dish is mounted on a large cedar tree stump.

Just checked in on the #VikramLander uplink frequency and Goldstone is quiet (so far) this night.

Huge signal from #LRO_NASA as she descends behind the lime of the Moon.

As I head of to bed, here's a wonderful recording of #Chandrayaan2 orbiter sending a strong signal from the Moon. No signals so far from #VikramLander. Good night all.

And a preview to tomorrow's orbital analysis of #Chandrayaan2. The plane of the orbit is still fully visible from Earth and amplitude of signal frequency is lower than yesterday so this could last a couple of days...

This is the orbiter :-)

The Sun ☀️ bursts out from behind the clouds during a late summer 🌧 storm and creates some great visuals.