Recent results of the large space debris modernised tracking telescope in the North Caucasus

Abstract

A relatively large aperture optical telescope for monitoring increasing debris population in a geosynchronous orbit (GEO) and a highly elliptical orbit (HEO) was recently repaired and renovated at the Peak Terskol Observatory after the long period of inactivity. The instrument placement at an altitude of 3100 meters provides pristine seeing conditions during on an average 1000 hours per year (about 1500 clear hours in general). This 80-cm telescope K-800, initially Cassegrain, was rebuilt for the observations in the prime focus with CCD technique due to the joint efforts of the International Scientific Optical Network (ISON) project and the Astronomical Observatory of Odessa I.I. Mechnikov National University. Presently, the instrument with a 228 cm focal length, provided by the large-format 3k×3k CCD camera with 12 μm pixel pitch, has enlarged 55 arc minutes field of view and is able to detect up to 19$^\text{th}$ magnitude GEO and HEO objects using few second exposures in 2×2 binning readout mode. To summarise, the instrument has unique specifications for its location. Moreover, the K-800 telescope is still under rebuilding, thus further enhancement is expected.