Astronomer captures first image of stricken satellite; Webcam takes photograph of top-secret craft.

Byline: BYALANWESTON Daily Post Staff

AN AMATEUR astronomer in Wirral has captured the first image of a top-secret US spy satellite which is expected to crash to Earth in the next few weeks.

John Locker used an optical telescope to record the highly-classified craft tumbling in its faulty orbit as it passed over his home in Upton.

The satellite was around 200 miles up and speeding across the sky as Mr Locker took his photo of sunlight glinting from its bodywork. He used a webcam attached to the telescope in his back garden to capture the image.

Mr Locker, 55, a retired bank manager, is part of an informal worldwide community of satellite observers who have been tracking the satellite since its launch in December, 2006.

It is believed the surveillance craft, bristling with secret military equipment and said to be the size of a small bus, failed to deploy its solar panels properly, causing it to fail shortly after launch.

But any possibility that its uncontrolled descent might cause damage or injury after it crashes to earth were, said Mr Locker, "highly unlikely."

Instead, it would burn up when it re-entered the earth's atmosphere in late February or early March. However, as it flies over most of the Earth from the tip of Scotland in the north to Patagonia in the south, the fragments could land almost anywhere in the world.

It carries a full load of hydrazine fuel, which is highly toxic, dangerously unstable and can cause sickness if humans come into contact with it.

Normally the fuel would have been used to keep it in position and help it come out of orbit safely at the end of its working life.

Mr Locker started tracking satellites as a hobby, but following his retirement it has developed into a full-time occupation as a consultant whose expertise is regularly called on by the BBC and Sky News.

And he makes no apology for following the progress of this and other top-secret spy crafts, which are used by the Pentagon to circle the earth and carry out surveillance of troublespots such as the Middle East.

"Nobody owns space and there is nothing to stop me looking into the sky. If something flies over my head in space, I'm entitled to look at it," said Mr Locker.

"These are the only images of the spy satellite from a land-based telescope and it is only thanks to perseverance that I managed to capture any.

"They show a car-sized chunk of metal without its solar panels, which means it doesn't have any power. The main challenge is in capturing a moving image and calculating when it is likely to appear.

Mr Locker's main interest lies in tracking the International Space Station (ISS), of which he has also obtained several images.

He previously hit the headlines in 2002 when he revealed that supposedly secret military spy plane operations in the Balkans could be watched by anyone with a satellite receiver.

There's nothing to stop me looking into the sky

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CAPTION(S):

John Locker with the 8ins optical telescope he used to identify the top secret US spy satellite