LSST flight tracking

It would be good to avoid pointing LSST at aircraft, or in their wake (to avoid contrails).

Modern aviation is moving to ping-respond systems that broadcast GPS coordinates. One such system, mandated by FAA for adoption by 2020, is the ADS-B protocol.

here is an overview article about iPad versions:

http://ipadpilotnews.com/2012/08/understanding-ads-b-traffic/

http://ipadpilotnews.com/2014/05/ads-b-receiver-buy/

Vendors that sell stand-alone ADS-B receivers include:

Kinetics avionics SBS-3, about $750.

http://www.4cellular.com/product_info.php?cPath=73_84&products_id=174

Linux decoding of 1090 transmissions:

http://penturalabs.wordpress.com/2013/09/25/sdr-ads-b-decoding-dump1090-linuxosx/

http://landoflinux.com/linux_sdr_adsb_gqrx_radio.html

Raspberry pi implementation

http://www.satsignal.eu/raspberry-pi/dump1090.html

Ham radio SDR implementation

http://www.hamradioscience.com/the-rtl-2832u-sdr-and-ads-b/

QST article

http://www.arrl.org/files/file/QST/This%20Month%20in%20QST/January%202014/VirtualRadarJan2013QST.pdf

ADS-B antenna hacks

http://www.rtl-sdr.com/adsb-aircraft-radar-with-rtl-sdr/

Cute antenna and 1090 preamp combination available at

http://www.wimo.com/gp1090-1090mhz-antenna_e.html

apple OSX implementation of RTL-SDR dongle readout

http://www.hfunderground.com/wiki/RTL-SDR

OSX 10.8 1090 decoder

http://www.blackcatsystems.com/download/Cocoa1090.zip

Stuff purchased for testing:

1090 MHz bandpass RF filters

SDR radio dongle

misc connectors

Next steps:

install and run RTL-SDR dongle on Mac with whip antenna, check things out
construct coax alternating antenna, see if that increases range
use dump1090 utility to track planes in real time.
Construct KMZ files for visualization in Google Earth
Construct zero-wind-speed contrail estimator
Fold in winds aloft data, real-time or historical, to predict contrail diffusion.
Create masked-off region in alt-az coordinates, then convert to RA-Dec exclusion area
make test installation for Pachon.