The Chang’e 5 T-1 (not DSCOVR) booster going to hit the Moon: a image – 6 Feb. 2022
We captured the Chang’e 5 T-1 booster while it is waving us for the last time, before it will hit the Moon next month.
The Chang’e 5 T-1 booster: 6 Feb. 2022.
IMPORTANT UPDATES: this space debris is now considered to be connected with the Chinese Chang’e 5-T1 launch!
The image above comes from a single 60-second exposure, 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 appearing slightly elongated. East is up, South on the left.
There was a VERY strong light + Moon interference and grabbing the Chang’e 5 T-1 booster was quite hard. We also noticed the booster is spinning fast (period of the order of 10 seconds), showing very brightness fluctuations.
At the imaging time, the Chang’e 5 T-1 booster was about 300.000 km far away, already closer than our Moon and approaching.
Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow we will share its flyby LIVE: check it out!
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