Home > The Earth > Artificial Satellites

FILE 40/40

XMM-Newton Space Observatory XMM.jpg This is the first picture of the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton Space Observatory taken in the northern hemisphere. XMM-Newton was launched on 10 December 1999 into a highly elliptical orbit of 37 degrees inclination, a perigee of 7'000 km and an apogee of 114'000 km. The picture was taken on 8th April 2000 at 04:00 UTC with a (front-illuminated) CCD camera through a 40 cm f/4 telescope. The exposure time was 30 seconds and the field of view is 20' x 20'. The center of the picture is at RA 17h24m, declination +06d01m. North is up and East is left. XMM was at a distance of 8 440 km and traveled from the right to the left side of the picture at an angular speed of 2.4 deg/min. The ephemeris to locate the satellite was provided by Bruno Tilgner.

Rate this file (current rating : 2 / 5 with 1 votes)

All pictures shown in this gallery are copyright protected by their individual photographer. It is prohibited to reproduce any picture in any form without written permission of the copyright owner. Please contact them directly. Any appearance of material provided here must indicate the source and include a link tag to this site.