IGS 5r flaring, and more USA 129 KH-12 in perigee

Over the past week I was able to observe on April 8, 9 and 12. I already reported on my April 9 observations of the new USA 227 (NROL-27) geostationary SDS here.

On April 12, I observed the Japanese optical reconnaissance satellite IGS 5A (09-066A) and the rocket that launched it, the IGS 5 rocket (IGS 5r, 09-066B), as well as the old American experimental satellite MSX (96-024A).

To my surprise, the IGS 5 rocket treated me on a bright slow mag 0 flare at about 20:43:27 UTC while it was making a pass in the east, near the tail of the Big Dipper. Below image shows the slow flare, with as an inset a second image made 20s later, showing it at its more usual brightness:

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MSX displayed a brief modest flare as well (mag. +1) at about 21:28:43 UTC.

IGS 1B (03-009B), another, older (and now defunct) Japanese IGS, was captured as well ( I will post more on IGS 1B shortly, probably at the end of next weekend, as it is coming down within a year from now):

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The KH-12 optical reconnaissance satellite USA 129 (96-072A) was still making near-perigee passes over the SatTrackCam observatory, resulting in fast passes and long trails. I had to revert to the 24 mm wide-angle lens to avoid the object running out of the FOV.

Below are two images showing it ascend over the rooftop of the SatTrackCam observatory. The first image shows it in the front body of Leo: the second image shows the head and front body of Leo at left, Castor and Pollux in Gemini at right, the head of Hydra in the bottom, and the trail of USA 129 close to the M44 (Praesepe) cluster in Cancer:

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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:

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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:

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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).

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