Optical observations of space debris with the Zimmerwald 1-meter telescope

Abstract Ground based observations of orbital debris are predominantly performed by either radar or optical techniques. It has been demonstrated that radar is best suited for routine surveys of low Earth orbits (LEO). Optical observations, on the other hand, are better than radar for objects at high altitudes, particularly in the geostationary ring and the geostationary transfer regions. The new Zimmerwald 1 m telescope has been designed as a multi-purpose instrument with special emphasis on debris observation capability (the telescope is used for satellite laser ranging during daytime). The detector system consists of a 2k × 2k four section CCD with fast readout electronics. Due to detector size and short exposure times of a few seconds the debris observation system produces large data volumes (more than 1 MByte/sec). Therefore efficient algorithms for automated detection of faint moving objects on CCD frames were developed and integrated into an on-line processing scheme.