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It was brighter yesterday than during my previous observations, this time reaching an easy naked-eye brightness. Near 20:38:15 UTC it slowly brightened to mag.+1. Above is one of my images, showing it as it traverses the northern part of Cygnus.
Ten minutes earlier, I observed USA 186 (2005-042A), the KH-11 Keyhole launched in 2005 that USA 245 in time is meant to replace. For the moment, they probably will operate together in the same orbital plane for several years. The image below shows it traversing Cepheus.
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After observing USA 186 and while waiting for USA 245, a very bright (up to mag. 0), slowly and irregularly flaring object appeared near 20:33 UT. It turned out to be ALOS (2006-002A), the Japanese Earth Observation satellite that malfunctioned in 2011. It evidently is slowly tumbling. Below are two images, showing the irregular brightness variation:
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