Spring objects, a Keyhole manoeuvre and a flare of the IGS 5 rocket

After three weeks with cloudy and rainy weather, two consecutive evenings on a row finally allowed observations again on 4 and 5 April.

This is the time of the year that, like spring birds, some object re-appear from their winter hiding: the American KH-12 Keyholes, and the Japanese Intelligence Gathering Satellites (IGS).

Two KH-12 keyhole optical reconnaissance satellites were targetted the past two evenings: USA 129 (96-072A) and USA 186 (05-042A). USA 129 is of special interest these days, as it made a small manoeuvre early april raising it's orbit slightly. I captured it 8 seconds late relative to an early April elset on April 4th. An analysis of the pre- and post-manoeuvre elsets suggest the manoeuvre occurred on April 1st near 04:35 UTC while the satellite was passing the US west coast just after going through it's ascending node.

USA 129 flared to mag. 0 on April 5th, 20:05:08 UTC.

Below is an image of USA 129 rising through patchy thin clouds in Leo on April 4th, and it's sister craft USA 186 moving low in the east though Bootes on the same evening around the same time:

click images to enlarge

I also got my first images of this year of the Japanese IGS, optical and radar satellites. The defunct IGS 1B (03-009B) was imaged on April 4 and 5, and flared briefly to mag. 0 at 21:21:15 UTC on April 5 with a distinct orange colour. On April 5, the IGS 5A craft (09-066A) was imaged by me for the first time.

Below is an image of IGS 1B shot on April 4th:

click image to enlarge

I also captured the rocket from the 09-066 (IGS 5) launch: IGS 5r (09-066B). It shows flaring behaviour, as can be seen below from the photograph and the detail image, with the resulting brightness profile below that. The main brightness maximum in the image occurred at 21:44:06.9 UTC (April 5).

click images to enlarge

A keyhole, a Trumpet, IGS 1B, and strays

Yesterday evening it was clear again. I captured the KH-12 Keyhole USA 186 (05-042A), and also IGS 1B (03-009B). In addition, two strays were captured, and the EF 100/2.8 Macro USM was used to capture the Trumpet ELINT USA 184 (06-027A) again.

In one of the pictures with USA 186, a piece of Delta 1 debris, 75-027E, was captured as a bright stray. In one of the images with IGS 1B, the Kosmos 1975 rocket (88-093B) was captured as a bright stray. Below is the latter image showing a part of Northern Cygnus:

Click image to enlarge

USA 184 Trumpet (?) ELINT and more

Yesterday in the daytime, it was clouded and rainy. It cleared marvelously in the evning though. I detected the clearings too late to capture the evening Keyhole passes, but captured a number of other objects: IGS 1B (03-009B, a defunct Japanese SAR), Lacrosse 2 (91-017A, a SAR as well), the NOSS 3-3 Duo (05-004 A & B), and two HEO objects: USA 184 (06-027A) and the USA 144 decoy (99-028C) again.

The image below shows the USA 144 decoy again, and is a somewhat better picture than that which I posted in a previous post:

Click image to enlarge

USA 184 was imaged as well, and for the first time by me. It showed up bright. It is probably a Trumpet-class ELINT satellite. It is in a Molniya orbit (see below) and at the time of imaging was at an altitude of 28560 km, over Northern Europe.

Click image to enlarge

Below is one of the images, plus an animated GIF of all five images, showing the movement perpendicular to the night sky rotation:

Click images to enlarge

Keyholes, IGS 1B and the USA 144 decoy

Yesterday evening it was clear again. I obtained data on two of the three Keyhole KH-12's, USA 129 (96-072A) and USA 186 (05-042A); on the defunct Japanese SAR IGS 1B (03-009B); and used the EF 100/2.8 Macro USM to capture the enigmatic HEO object USA 144 debris/decoy (99-028C).

The latter object is an interesting one. It was part of the launch of what is believed to be the second stealth reconnaissance satellite, Misty-2. After being picked up by amateur observers and observed for some time, doubts began to grow whether it really was the main payload. Ted Molczan determined from the obital evolution that the object did not appear dense enough to be an operational satellite (i.e. USA 144 itself), something further suggested by the fact that it appeared to be slowly tumbling. Instead, it is either a weird piece of debris from the Delta IV used to launch USA 144; or a deliberate decoy used to get attention away from the real payload. See here, here and here for the details.

Below are one of the images of the USA 144 Decoy which I obtained yesterday evening (it is crossing the northwest corner of Pegasus here), it's orbit, and the launch patch of the 1999 launch.

Click images to enlarge

The object was almost 10 seconds early relative to a 17-day old elset. It shows a slow but clear brightness variation over the image series.

The KH-12 Keyhole USA 186 (05-042A) was 2 seconds early relative to an elset of the previous day. USA 129 (96-072A) was on-time. IGS 1B (03-009B) was 0.25s late.

Observations, a flare, and a logo

Over the past week I could observe on four evening: 11/12, 15/16, 16/17 and 17/18 August. Targets imaged on these nights were the three KH-12 Keyholes (USA 129, 161 and 186), the Japanese prematurely defunct SAR IGS 1B, and the US SAR Lacrosse 3.

USA 186 (05-042A) provided a nice mag. -2 flare on 16 Aug at 20:52:07.0 UTC. It was captured in an image, but unfortunately a too hasty camera pointing meant the satellite run out of the image before the end of the exposure. the flare is on it though, close to the image edge. Below is a crop of the relevant part of the image, and the derived brightness profile.

Note that the "saw-tooth" pattern in the profile is due to the satellite trail being at ~45 deg angle to the pixel orientation, i.e. it is an artifact of the pixel grid.

(click images to enlarge)

In a moment of boredom last weekend, I designed something long overdue for SatTrackCam Leiden (Cospar 4353): a logo.

It is a bit inspired by the "patches" the NRO employees create for their covert space missions (see here and here for a discussion and examples). Hence all symbols used have some meaning (have fun interpreting!). The Latin(ish) roughly translates to "All Your Nightly Secrets Are Belong To Us", a pun at the NRO's credo "We Own the Night" used in some of their patches and the infamous "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" of gaming/internet lore.

USA 186 and IGS 1B

Friday evening saw very clear skies during twilight. Unfortunately, it got clouded soon after. This meant I was prevented from targetting a nice pass of the STSS-ATRR rocket (09-023B) and USA 161 (01-044A). I did image the Keyhole USA 186 (05-042A) however, in deep twilight, obtaining three positions. This object recently (July 15) made a small manoeuvre.

Yesterday was a repeat of the day before: clear at the start of the evening, but clouded out after midnight. Again I missed out on USA 161 and the STSS-ATRR rocket. I did manage to catch the defunct Japanese radar spy IGS 1B (03-009B), obtaining six positions. It was bright while ascending through Ophiuchus in the south, then faded somewhat, became quite bright again while crossing Draco and then faded quickly beyond visibility. Visually, at moments the object was slightly and quickly fluctuating in brightness in irregular fashion. Some of that fluctuation can be seen in the right-hand part of the brightness diagram below, derived from one of the images (top).

(click images to enlarge)

Flare evening

Yesterday evening 19-20 May was an evening of unpredicted flares.

It started with the International Space Station (ISS) in deep twilight. After a splendid zenith pass, while at 40 degrees altitude descending to the East, it shortly brightened to a dazzling mag. -8.

Somewhat later, still in twilight, it was the Keyhole USA 129 (96-072A) flaring to mag. 0. I caught one of the flares on photograph, just south-east of Regulus against a bright blue twilight background. Below the image ( plus a detail) and the brightness profile:

(click images to enlarge)

Somewhat later in the evening, I was next treated to a spectacular mag. -7 flare of IGS 1B (03-009B) while it was passing through the zenith, alas just after the camera shutter closed. The flare was a bright orange-yellow and lasted maybe a second (approximate time, not too accurate: 21:25:00 UTC).

Apart from these flaring objects, observations were also obtained of the NOSS 3-4 rocket (07-027B), showing its regular slow brightness variation; the keyhole USA 186 (05-042A), the SAR satellite Lacrosse 3 (97-064A) and the STSS-ATRR rocket (09-023B).

I also visually observed the STSS-ATRR itself (09-023A), but due to pressing a wrong button of the stopwatch lost my two points on it alas.

In all, a very fruitful night!

The Misty 2 decoy, USA 129, IGS 1B and more

Yesterday evening was a very clear evening. A bright moon lit the sky though.

Several objects were imaged. Two Keyhole satellites were captured: USA 129 (96-072A) and USA 161 (01-044A). For the first time this year, the Japanese IGS 1B (03-009B) defunct radar satellite was in range again, always a sure sign spring has arrived. Below are two images, of USA 129 and IGS 1B.

(click images to enlarge)

Among the HEO objects, the SIGINT USA 200 (08-010A) and the USA 144 deb/Misty 2 decoy (99-028C) were captured.

The latter is an interesting object. Launched in May 1999, a bright object from the launch was tracked by amateur observers (see story here). After some time it became clear from the orbital behaviour of the object, that it could not be a real operational payload. Rather, it is a piece of debris or a decoy meant to draw attention away from the real stealth payload. The object is bright, but probably small and very lightweight, and moving in a 2700 x 3100 km orbit. Below is the image I obtained on a pass of this object last evening.

(click image to enlarge)

Flares, strays and spy sats

The evenings of September 1st and 3rd saw a nice catch of satellites. My new camera system (Canon EOS 450D + EF 50/2.5 Macro) really is a sat magnet, which is also apparent by the number of strays captured in images with classified objects.

Objects imaged these nights include the KeyHole satellites USA 129 (96-072A) and USA 186 (05-042A), the SAR sats Lacrosse 4 & 5 (00-047A and 05-016A), and the Japanese sats IGS 1A and IGS 1B (03-009A and 03-009B).

IGS 1A is an example of a sat that would normally be beyond reach of my older camera system, but is well within reach now. The KeyHoles are captured much more easily now too.

Moreover, the quality of the positions obtained seems to be better. This is due to both the better image quality (less ambiguity in the start and end of the trails, as the images are much less noisy and the trails brighter), and to a much better, consistent timing behaviour of this camera.

Because of the more narrow field of the EF 50/2.5 Macro lens, I employ the laser (the same I use for pointing my telescope) to point the camera. Below is a photograph of what this looks like (although in reality the beam is less bright visually: this is the result of a 10 second exposure). Stars visible are from Cassiopeia and Perseus, with the double cluster visible just beneath the laser beam.

(click image to enlarge)

On September 1st, I watched Lacrosse 5 (05-016A) together with my neighbour. It was nice and bright, and did it's infamous "disappearance trick" while just past the zenith. I had just been explaining this peculiar behaviour to my neighbour, so he got a nice demonstration!

Some nice flares were captured too these evenings. Below images show a mag. -8 flare of Iridium 72 on 3 Sep 20:15:29 UTC, and a brief mag 0 flare/glint by KeyHole satellite USA 129 (96-072A) at 20:33:34 UTC on the same evening. The curtain-like structure on the Iridium image is due to a moving patch of clouds.

(click images to enlarge)

Several strays were captured as well, mostly spent Russian rocket boosters.

IGS 1B and NOSS 3-2 amidst flying clouds

Yesterday evening the atmosphere was very dynamic, with flying clouds. I did manage to capture the NOSS 3-2 pair (03-054A & C) in twilight, and IGS 1B (03-009B). The NOSS image suffered from twilight and clouds, but also yielded a fast stray (which I still have to identify).

IGS 1B was very bright again (+0.5) when it came out of eclipse and passed almost overhead. The picture below gives a good indication of the observing conditions.

(click image to enlarge)

Keyhole USA 186 manoeuvred at Aug 14.6, and imaging a NOSS duo (REVISED)

A late report on my August 14 observations and associated topics.

August 14 featured a nice clear evening. I captured the Keyhole USA 186 (05-042A), the Japanese failed radar sat IGS 1B (03-009B), the NOSS 3-2 duo (03-054A & 03-054C) and a piece of a Russian rocket stage (86-052D) that I caught as a bright stray.

This is the first time that I managed to get a good image of a NOSS pair. I snatched them close to the zenith, while traversing close to Vega. They show up surprisingly well in the image:

(click image to enlarge)

NOSS (Naval Ocean Surveillance System) satellites operate in pairs or triples (the older ones), orbiting close together, and locate shipping by tracking radio communications. They belong to the US Navy. Usually they are faint (mag. +5 to +6) but on occasion can appear brighter.

USA 186 Keyhole manoeuvred: connected to Georgia events or not?

USA 186 (05-042A) appeared somewhat late, but as the elset I had available was 10 days old I did not think anything particular about that. It was Pierre, who observed the same pass from France, who realized the sat had made a manoeuvre. This was confirmed by additional observations the next two nights by Pierre, Ted and Alberto.

Below is the image taken by me, showing USA 186 crossing close to M13 in Hercules:

(click image to enlarge)

The manoeuvre entailed adjusting the eccentricity and mean motion, and perhaps a small inclination adjustment. Perigee was brought down slightly, and apogee up, to a 261 x 1024 km orbit (was 264 x 1017 km).

Using a pre-manoeuvre elset by Mike and an adjusted version of Ted's post-manoeuvre elset, I find that the manoeuvre likely happend at Aug 14.6 UTC, some six hours before Pierre and my observation.

Satellites usually manoeuvre when the perigee is at the equator, as this minimizes fuell needed and maximizes results that can be obtained. USA 186 did not have it's perigee on the equator on the moment of manoeuvre however.

The manoeuvre comes at a time when chaotic war activities between Russia and Georgia are a focus of interest. This opens the question whether this manoeuvre of USA 186 (a Keyhole/improved Crystal satellite with high definition optical imagery capacities) is related.

Checking the pre-manoeuvre orbit against the post-manoeuvre orbit concerning passes over the relevant area of interest, it appears that the object was to synchronize passes as much as possible into a sequence where a daylight pass is followed exactly 11 hours later by a nighttime pass: with in addition an as exact as possible repeat of the observing geometry after 4 days. Whether or not this is related to the Georgia events, is a matter of speculation. Ted thinks it is not the case.

The patterning is apparent from this table (times are in UTC) showing passes over/near Georgia:

date____old orb___new orb
(2008)___pass______pass
-------------------------
15-8____06:58_____06:58
15-8____17:57_____17:58

16-8____07:22_____07:22
16-8____18:21_____18:22

17-8____06:08_____06:09
17-8____17:06_____17:09

18-8____06:32_____06:34
18-8____17:30_____17:34

19-8____06:55_____06:59
19-8____17:54_____17:58

20-8____07:19_____07:23
20-8____18:17_____18:22
------------------------

Daylight pass followed 11 hours later by nighttime pass (click images to enlarge)

IGS 1B flare, no Perseids

Yesterday was a strange evening. The day had been very clear, but with very strong wind (with gusts up to 100 km/h). In twilight, some clouds came in. It then got completely clouded, cleared again, and finally got clouded again, including a thunderstorm.

This all made me miss the Perseid meteor maximum. During the clearings however, I did manage to catch Lacrosse 2 (91-107A, in twilight), and the failed Japanese satellite IGS 1B (03-009B).

The latter was very bright (about +0.5) in the southeast and east. It then faded notably to +3, +3.5 just past east, and finally flared brightly to -1.5 in the northeast around 21:03:55 UTC.

I got three images of both satellites, totalling 11 positions (I dropped the faint trail end of the third IGS 1B image). The three IGS 1B images showed a second, very faint trail as well, which turned out to be the classified research MSX satellite (96-024A).

(click images to enlarge)

Another -8 Iridium flare

Bright Iridium flares never are a bore, and the summer season with its long twilight at my latitude has plenty of them.

Last night at 22:56:24 UTC (Aug 4) I observed Iridium 21 (99-032B) flare brilliantly to mag. -8 in Ophiuchus. Like 31 July's Iridium 74 flare (which occurred in roughly the same sky position), it visually had a yellowish colour.

(click image to enlarge)

It was a beautifully clear, warm night. In addition to Iridium 21, I also observed a nice bright pass of ISS, reaching mag. -3. Another object that never bores. On the classified front, I observed IGS 1B (03-009B) and the NOSS 3-4 Centaur rocket (07-027B) again.

While imaging IGS 1B, certain noises through an open window nearby reminded me that on a beautiful night like this, some other people also engage in their own particular pleasurable hobbies too... ;-)

As I was very tired, I stopped after observing and photographing the Iridium flare.

NOSS 3-4 Centaur rocket brightness variation

Last night (3-4 August) I observed the NOSS 3-4 Centaur rocket stage (07-027B) again over a large part of its trajectory. I obtained a number of images (yielding 10 positions), and they nicely show the varying brightness of the rocket stage due to its tumbling. It can be well seen in below series of snapshots, which were taken at approximately 1 minute intervals:

(click image to enlarge)

note added 05/08: the variation is not in each sub-image, but between the images. Basically, the sequence for these four is: picture #1 bright trail; picture #2 faint trail; picture #3 bright trail again; picture #4 faint trail again.

Apart from 07-027B, I also observed IGS 1B (03-009B) and a mag. -0.5 flare of Iridium 74 (98-032D). Around the time of the Iridium flare however, cirrus clouds moved in and I stopped observing.

USA 161 flare, beautiful evening

Yesterday evening was very clear, thanks to a strong wind blowing the clouds away. I could observe until 3 am, when clouds came in again.

Highlight of the session was Keyhole satellite USA 161 (01-044A). It was very bright for much of its pass (about +2) and then flared to mag. -1.5 at 00:00:46 UTC. It was so nice to do that while the camera was open: image is below.

Other catches included Lacrosses 3 & 4 (97-064A & 00-047A) and IGS 1B (03-009B). One of the Lacrosse 3 images also captured a stray, which turned out to be the Kosmos 2292 SL-8 rocket (94-061B). Several other bright strays were seen, three of them flaring nicely, while preparing the camera.

I had USA 161 some 0.6s late, IGS 1B some 2.6s late, Lacrosse 4 some 0.4s late, and Lacrosse 3 some 0.3s early.

(click image to enlarge)

Timing errors and a mag. -5 IGS 1B flare

After the unexpected METOP-A flare of yesterday evening, I was surprised by another unexpected flare. And what a flare: it concerned the failed Japanese radar satellite IGS 1B (03-009B) flaring at about 21:06:20 UTC to magnitude -5!

It happened after I had taken a photograph of IGS 1B and was in the process of moving my tripod to another corner of the courtyard. I suddenly saw it flaring so brilliantly with a distinct yellowish colour and my jaw dropped. I didn't get the chance to aim and get a shot of it.

I have never seen IGS 1B do this before. Together with the somewhat irregular brightness behaviour in past evening sightings, I think it underlines that it is tumbling out of control.

On a less positive note, I seem to have developed a time lag in my positions lately. They seem to be about 0.35 seconds too late in general. All positions produced from now on will incorporate a 0.35s correction therefore and we'll see whether things get in line again.

The most likely source of the timing error is in the camera (another much less likely option is in the DCF77 signal). Indeed I recently did access my camera with other software than usual, which seems to have done something to my settings.

The timing accuracy keeps being a head-ache and the bottle-neck of the technique I employ, together with the effects of random noise (and the noise suppression routine) in the image.

Yet for now my current equipment is all I can afford, so I'll just have to do with it.

Below is another image of yesterday, showing Keyhole USA 129 (96-072A) crossing at mag. +1 close to the coma cluster (here shown at reduced resolution, so some of the fainter stars are lost).

(click image to enlarge)

Flare Galore! And IGS 1B tumbling?

Flare Galore this evening! Three objects were observed flaring: keyholes USA 186 (05-042A), USA 129 (96-072A), and Lacrosse 4 (00-047A).

The USA 186 flare was spectacular, see the image below. It was a complex double flare. First it very slowly flared to mag. -1.5, peaking round about 20:53:00 UTC. When it was still fading from that flare, a second very short flare was seen at about 20:53:11 UTC. This flare terminated very suddenly, the sat becoming faint in an instance.

Below image shows it all. The peak of the first -1.5 flare coincides more or less with start of the exposure and is at down left (movement is from down left to upper right). The second flare can be seen at upper right. It ended very abruptly with the sat going to naked eye near-invisibility almost at an instance. update (19/04/07): the faint trail extension I thought was real, turns out to be an image artifact.

(click images to enlarge)

Shortly after this, USA 129 flared as well, albeit more modest than USA 186 ten minutes earlier. It reached about mag. +1 at 21:03:30 UTC. The image below shows it fading directly after the flare peak.

(click image to enlarge)

The third flare of this night was produced by Lacrosse 4, and predicted to me by Philip Masding. His prediction was for 21:37:34 UTC: it flared at 21:37:37 UTC. It was a modest flare only. The image is below, the brightness modestly peaks in the second part of the trail.

(click image to enlarge)

This evening I finally successfully observed and captured IGS 1B (03-009B), the Japanese radar satellite that recently reportedly failed. It made a shadow exit at 23:52:50 UTC and was of mag. +2 immediately following that. In the next minute it slowly, irregularly but clearly varied in brightness with an amplitude of about 0.5 to 1 magnitude.

This is quite unlike its steady brighness in past years, so it appears that after the power failure its attitude is now out of control and it is tumbling.

In the image below it is fading, shortly after the end of the exposure it shortly gained brightness again.

(click image to enlarge)

In addition to this all I also watched and photographed a fine pass of the International Space Station around 20:32 UTC, and spotted and photographed a bright stray object near 20:51 UTC while waiting for USA 186: I still have to identify this object as I have not measured that image yet.

Chasing Keyholes

The past two evenings where very clear again. I spent them chasing Keyholes and Lacrosses.

USA 129 (96-072A) and USA 186 (05-042A) provided some nice flares again. On Saturday the 7th, USA 129 displayed a slow -1 flare at 20:01:00 UTC, and a +2 flare very low in the west during the second pass at 21:38:40. The next evening, its cousin USA 186 flared to mag. 0 at 20:22:30 UTC in pretty much the same local sky area as USA 129 did the previous evening. In both cases they peaked in brightness before my first exposure started, and I catched them fading again (see image below).

I also obtained my first point on the Japanese radar sat IGS 1B (03-009B) since its reported failure. It came out of eclipse just above the rooftops, the trail on the image is still faint and hence I am not too confident in the single position I obtained.

In the next few weeks, moving away from spring equinox, the IGS-es will come higher and higher in the sky. There is a new set of recently launched IGS objects I hope to start tracking besides IGS 1B.

As usual the Lacrosses were covered again too. Lacrosse 5 (05-016A) did its "disappearance trick" again on the 7th at 19:30:17 UTC. The other Lacrosse target was Lacrosse 2 (91-017A).

For yesterday evening, I had USA 129 less than 0.1 s "late", but clearly off-track by 0.08 degree. USA 186 was as much as 0.9s late but on-track. Lacrosse 2 was less than 0.1s "early" and on-track.

The image below shows USA 129 (96-072A) some 15 seconds after a flare peak, still being mag. +2, crossing near the Coma cluster on the 7th.

(click image to enlarge)

More KH flare fun

Observing a flare as a bonus to position determinations keeps being the icing on the cake for me. Last night Keyhole USA 186 (05-042A), the real one this time ;-) , did it again. I flared to magnitude -1 in the zenith at 21:01:10 UTC.

My camera opened about 10 seconds later, when the satellite was already well past the flare maximum. It is still of about mag. +2 at the start of the trail on the image, but fades to invisibility during the exposure.

Other targets imaged last night were the SAR satellites Lacrosse 5 (during two passes) and Lacrosse 2.

Lacrosse 2 (91-017A) was 2.3s early. Lacrosse 5 (05-016A) 0.4s late. USA 186 was on-time.

I am eagerly awaiting the opening of the springtime visibility window of the Japanese radar satellite IGS 1B (03-009B). After several years of operation this satellite recently reportedly failed in orbit. While operational its orbit was tightly controlled by almost daily small orbit manoeuvres keeping it very steady. It is interesting to see whether that level of control is now dropped (early results by other trackers indeed suggest such).