PAN and other geostationary satellites in a frosty winter sky

Last Sunday evening, the pass of the Terra SAR X and Tandem X close duo posted earlier here and a pass of Lacrosse 4 shortly after that, were not the only observations I made. Somewhat later that night, I targetted several geostationary satellites, using both the Canon EF 2.5/50 mm Macro lens and the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180 mm lens (the latter for the first time on geostationary objects).

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The image above, taken with the EF 2.5/50mm lens, shows two geostationary objects close to the Orion nebula.

One is the classified object USA 202/Mentor 4 (2009-001A), a big SIGINT geostationary satellite with a brightness of about mag. +8. It has featured on this observing blog earlier. The other one, Galaxy 8 (1997-078A), is a commercial communications satellite and was captured serendipitously in the same image while it was brightly but briefly flashing. It is not visible in an image taken 30 seconds later (and only faintly visible in an image taken 3.5 minutes earlier).

I also imaged the mysterious classified geostationary PAN (2009-047A) for the first time, using the new Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180 mm lens. Below image shows it together with the nearby commercial geostationary satellites Paksat 1 (1996-006A) and Hellas-sat 2 (2003-020A).

click image to enlarge

PAN is a very mysterious object, the mysteries surrounding the 2009 launch being discussed at length by Dwayne Day in his Space Review article here. The mystery was (and is), that no Agency (neither NRO, USAF, US Navy nor CIA) claimed responsibility for the launch. Owner and role are hence unknown. There was much speculation about the possible role of the spacecraft, and the meaning of the acronym PAN. The latter got at least one "solution" when the launch patch (below) appeared, suggesting PAN stood for "Palladium At Night". Whatever that may mean.



The same images that contained PAN, Paksat and Hellas-sat 2 also contained the very faint trail of a Breeze-M tank (2009-050C) and two more geostationary satellites: Eutelsat W4 and Eutelsat W7 (2000-028A and 2009-065A). This all in an image only a few degrees wide!

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Last but not least, the classified geostationary communicatiosn satellite Milstar 5 (2002-001A) was imaged. In the same image(s), two other, commercial geostationary satellites were visible: Galaxy 11 (1999-071A) and Inmarsat 4-F2 (2005-044A). A rich haul of geostationary objects, obtained at mildly frosty temperatures of -2.5 C!

An IGS 1B flare, and Geostationary satellites again

Last evening 25-26 May was not the best of evenings: cirrus, and moonlight, plus this time of the year the sky darkens late and in fact remains in twilight all night at 52 N.

In twilight, I observed the KH-12 KeyHole USA 186 (05-042A), IGS 1B (03-009B), and Lacrosse 4 (00-047A). Short after midnight, the still flaring commercial geostationary satellite Galaxy 11 (99-071A) and the classified military geostationary satellite Milstar 5 (02-001A) were the target.

IGS 1B slowly flared to mag. -0.5 at about 21:15:48.5 UTC (May 25), while the camera was open. below photograph shows the brightnes speak, when it was cruising close to the Coma cluster:

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IGS 1B is a defunct Japanese Radar Reconnaissance satellite. Since it went out of control, it is producing flares occasionally (sometimes up to mag. -3 to -5 peak brightness).

Galaxy 11 was flaring again, but is getting fainter at its peak. If my modelling is right, it might flare again in a new cycle around the 3rd week of July. Below link provides an animated GIF of last night covering 20 minutes with the geosat flaring up. Milstar 5 is in it as well, moving southward.

Link: animated GIF ( 5.5 Mb)

Around 22:10 UTC, Intelsat 802 (97-031A) briefly flares up close to Galaxy 11. It stays faint, but is visible. The single image below might help discern it:

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Geostationary Galaxy 11 flaring to mag +2.5

In my post of yesterday, I reported a bright geostationary satellite flaring to naked eye brightness, observed by several Dutch and Belgian observers.

Below are my images of last night (taken with the EF 50/2.5 Macro). It shows two "stars" "too many" in Ophiuchus: a brighter one (A, vertical arrow) and a fainter one (B, flat arrow). The second image is a more detailed crop of the first, at full pixel level resolution.

click images to enlarge

The glare next to the tree in the wide field image, is due to a street lantern.

The satellite flaring to mag. +2.5 turns out to be Galaxy 11 (99-071A). It peaked near 22:18 UTC (23 May) and was visible with the naked eye at that moment, nothwithstanding it was low in the sky and I was observing from the city center.

The other object is Milstar 5 (02-001A) again. A faint trail of a non-geostationary satellite is visible as well: this turned out to be Globalstar 55 (99-049C).

Link: 2.2 MB animated GIF

Above link opens a 2.2 Mb animated gif with images from 22:10 to 22:19 UTC, which shows Galaxy 11 increasing in brightness. Milstar 5 is slowly drifting south.

A third geosat was captured on the images (not shown here), which is either Thuraya 2 (03-026A) or USA 202 (09-001A); probably the first.