FocusGEO observations of space debris at Geosynchronous Earth Orbit

Abstract

A new generation telescope for objects at Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) was developed by Shanghai Astronomical Observatory at the end of 2017, it’s called FocusGEO telescope. The goal is to observe nearly all the GEO objects over the observation station near real-time. FocusGEO telescope consists of three refracting telescopes of 18 cm aperture and 22 cm focal length, forming a super-large rectangular field of view(FOV) of 3 × 9.5°×9.5°. Each 15 min FocusGEO telescope scans a strip of sky 112.9°long × 28.3°high, almost fully covers the GEO belt over the station. In early 2018, FocusGEO observations were carried out at the Lijiang Observatory site of Yunnan Observatory, the results show that FocusGEO can observe about 380 GEO objects over the station per night. Its observation completeness is over 90% to GEO objects catalogued by USSTRATCOM. In the case of exposure for 5 s, FocusGEO can observe 15 magnitude GEO objects. The observation precision is about 3″ in azimuth and elevation.