[UPDATED] Three UNID's in GEO/GTO/HEO/MEO, SBIRS GEO 2, and Lacrosse 5 has manoeuvered

Updated 14:35 UT (Jun 23) to reflect that I found a third UNID on my imagery after writing the original post

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Saturday/Sunday night 21/22 June was very clear. As I had some trouble getting to sleep, I decided to make use of it to do a survey of the GEO belt, from my secondary site Cospar 4355 which is in the polder just outside of town, some 10-15 minutes by bicycle. The sky is a bit darker there and I have a better view to low elevations. Using the 1.4/85mm Samyang lens, I can expose twice as long as I can from my regular town center site 4353. The downside: so many objects on the images to identify and measure....

This observing site, in a polder park with meadows and polder ditches, is very tranquile. A choir of frogs was chanting during my observations, and meadow birds were adding their voice too. As I was observing, a low blanket of ground fog started to form, with my camera on tripod popping up just above it.


Two Three UNID's

At the moment I am still slowly working myself through the 54 images taken, identifying objects, but I can already report that I captured two three UNID objects (for positions on the 3rd see here), two in GTO/GEO and one in MEOor HEO. They are not in the Space-Track catalogue nor in our classified catalogue.

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UNID 1 was observed as a small trail on several images taken between 23:05:32 and 23:23:32 UT (June 21). The 15 second image above shows it near the SIGINT satellite Mentor 4 (2009-001A) and is the first image that captured it. It looks like something in GTO and a very cautious orbit fit to this short 18 minute observation arc indeed suggests a GTO-like, roughly 13160 x 36945 km, 12.8 degree inclined orbit with a period of ~1.6 revolutions per day:

UNID 1                                               13160 x 36945 km
1 00000U 00000X   14172.96808160 0.00000000  00000-0  00000+0 0    05
2 00000  12.7577 311.8608 3783132 187.8049 143.4679  1.55784798    00

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UNID 2 was detected on only two 20 second images taken half a minute apart. It is less trail like (see image above), but slowly moving south when the measurements on the two images are combined. It is either in a somewhat inclined GEO orbit or a GTO object near apogee.

The image above also shows SBIRS GEO 2 (2013-011A), a classified geostationary SBIRS satellite (an Early Warning satellite looking for missile launches in Infra-Red). In addition, an old Russian r/b and a Russian military GLONASS (the Russian equivalent of GPS) satellite are visible. Star trails are slightly blurry because the FOV represents a detail near the edge of the image.

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[UPDATE] 
UNID 3 was detected close to alpha Serpens in only two 20 second images taken 1 minute apart.  It is clearly trailing. The positions fit either a circular MEO orbit, or a HEO orbit (the observation arc is too short to discriminate). Above, the two images that captured it are shown.


Lacrosse 5 appears to have manoeuvered

The same image that captured UNID 1 also captured the military Radar satellite Lacrosse 5 (2005-016A, see image in top of this post), just as it was emerging from Earth shadow. It was about 54 seconds late relative to 8-day-old elements. That is a lot for only 8 day old elements. Hence it appears to have manoeuvered somewhere in the past few days.

The Nanosail UNID (10-062X) and Lacrosse 5 brightness variation

When NASA's experimental solar sail Nanosail-D was launched by a Minotaur IV rocket in 2010, it was not the only object this launch brought into space. A number of other, classified objects were part of the same launch.

Now Nanosail-D has decayed, four of these objects (RAX, OREOS, FASTSAT, FAST 1) are being tracked by amateur trackers. One additional object of the launch that is being tracked, however cannot be identified reliably with one of the payloads so far. It could be a payload, or a rocket part from the launch. Dubbed the 2010-062 UNID (10-062X) or "Nanosail UNID" by amateur trackers, it is an object near magnitude 4-5, stable in brightness.

The footage above (WATEC 902H + Canon EF 2.0/35mm lens) shows it passing through the tail of Uma (bright stars are epsilon Uma and delta Uma) on April 1st 2012.

I also filmed Lacrosse 5 (05-016A) that evening. The erratic brightness behaviour of this satellite has featured before on this observing blog. Using footage from the April 1st pass and LiMovie, I reconstructed the brightness curve below, showing a  flare at 20:09:14 UTC and a general quite irregular brightness behaviour with what looks like several small peaks. At 20:09:30 UTC, it appears to do it's typical "disappearance trick" again, dropping rapidly in brightness in just a few seconds of time (note: shadow entry was not before 20:12:00 UTC). The profile is very similar to profiles for Lacrosse 5 which Philip Masding previously obtained, also showing the "disappearing trick" being preceeded by a flare.

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The video footage this curve is based on, is this footage (shot with a 12mm wide-angle lens):



More objects were observed the past few nights. Among them USA 129 (96-072A) and Lacrosse 4, while CCD imagery of Prowler (90-097E)  using the "remote" Rigel telescope of Winer observatory was obtained again as well.

Lacrosse 5

For those arriving here through the link with Thierry's imaging of Lacrosse 5 on Spaceweather: a discussion of the Lacrosse 5 "disappearance trick" including a video of such an event, can be found here.

The Lacrosse 5 "disappearance trick" captured on video

Note: the video below was featured (with my permission) on Spaceweather.com. Unfortunately, it was initially suggested there (and this definitely did not come from me) that the discussed "disappearance trick" is a deliberate "stealth" feature of this satellite.

It almost certainly is not: it is something brough about by accident from something specific in the satellite design.

I also want to make clear, as it kept popping up in the YouTube comments (which I have now disabled), that this is not the moment the satellite disappears in earth shadow! The drop in magnitude happened at 17:35:20 UTC: shadow entry was much later, 17:38:55 UTC.

The video above was shot by me Friday evening (11 Nov). It shows Lacrosse 5 (2005-016A), the latest of the Lacrosse SAR satellites.  It was launched in 2005. In the movie, it is doing it's infamous "disappearance trick" (also note the old Russian rocket stage visible in the second part of the footage).

The brightness behaviour of this satellite is different from that of the previous Lacrosse satellites. Apart from that it is brighter overall and a bit yellowish in colour (the others are distinctly orange-reddish), it shows a variable brightness behaviour that the other Lacrosse satellites do not show (or at least not to this extreme extend).

Lacrosse 5 can sometimes drop several magnitudes in brightness, typically from +1 (easy naked eye) to +5 or +6 (naked eye invisibility or near-invisibility), in a matter of seconds.

After observing this a couple of times, I coined it the "disappearance trick", a term that has stuck in the amateur satellite observer's community.

While many satellites can flare briefly (and the Lacrosses do), this opposite effect of one suddenly dropping in brightness other than due to normal phase angle changes or entry into earth shadow (which is not the case here!!!), is not quite common. And Lacrosse 5 does it that frequently, that it stands out.

Normally, when a satellite or spent rocket stage shows sudden changes in brightness, it is due to either:

a) the satellite entering earth shadow;
b) the satellite is tumbling.

Both are not the case here. These "disappearance tricks" of Lacrosse 5 happen well before the point of shadow entry. In addition, the behaviour is not the typical "flashing" behaviour of a tumbling or spinning satellite. There is no periodicity, and the drop in brightness happens after a long period of stable brightness.

The behaviour is interesting, because the sister ships of Lacrosse 5 (the other Lacrosses) do not typically show this behaviour. The implication is, that Lacrosse 5 is different in design than Lacrosses 1 to 4.

I have photographically documented the phenomena several times, including brightness curves (see here, and a comparison of several curves showing the phenomena here, featuring the comparative diagram shown below).

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Philip Masding has been documenting the phenomena as well, his results can be seen here. His curves also show, and I have seen this happen as well, that Lacrosse 5 can sometimes "re-appear" (and, as I have seen occasionally, next "disappear" again...).

One point is, that we so far cannot find a clear pattern in this all. The satellite does not seem to do this at specific phase angles for example.

We are still at a loss to explain this behaviour. Please note: we don't think it is an intentional "stealth" characteristic. Yet it must have something to do with the satellite design or operation.

Is it a matter of strongly differing reflectance properties of the satellite body with illumination angle? Is it some brightly reflecting appendage on the satellite disappearing from view? Is it a dark appendage on the satellite starting to block view of the illuminated satellite body, or casting a shadow on it? Is it due to some moving part of the satellite, e.g. a moving dish antenna?

We simply do not know. And it is giving us a nice puzzle.

The photograph below, taken in addition to the video footage above, shows Lacrosse 5 in the bright phase of Friday's trajectory.

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Apart from Lacrosse 5, I observed a couple of other satellites last Friday, including the NOSS 3-5 duo (11-014A & B) and USA 32 (88-078A)

First light of my WATEC camera - footage of Lacrosse 5 and the NOSS 3-4 duo

For quite a while, I have had a wish to add video to my observing techniques. That moment is now there.

During last October's Draconid meteor campaign, I was introduced to working with WATEC 902H camera's (see my previous post here), and discovered it was not that technically complicated after all. So when I saw one offered for a very good price in a clearance sale in October, I bought one.

The WATEC 902H is a sensitive surveillance camera, which is able to film stars - and satellites- in the night sky. It is small (fits in the palm of a hand).

I still need to add a GPS time inserter (it has been ordered already) for adding precision timing to the video frames. Once that is done, the system is complete.

Meanwhile, I did some test imaging when it briefly cleared last Wednesday evening. Conditions were not optimal: moonlight and a bit of haze. Below are two results, both movies made using a Canon EF 2.0/35mm lens attached to the camera and in both cases the opening shot shows the "dipper" of Ursa minor, with the brightest stars being beta and gamma Umi.

The first movie shows Lacrosse 5 (2005-016A), at one point doing its "disappearance trick":



The next movie shows the NOSS 3-4 duo (2007-027A & C):




The first experiments were a bit more problematic than anticipated. Initially, I tried to feed the video signal from the camera directly into the laptop (and record using the laptop) using an EasyCap capturing device. That turned out to not work that well. My laptop is old and apparently too slow, and too many frames were dropped resulting in movies that did not flow well.

On the advice of Scott Campbell, Kevin Fetter and Greg Roberts, I then added a HDD recorder to the equipment, recording with this device rather than with the laptop. That turns out to work fine, and resulted in the footage above (note: the original movie files are a bit better in quality than these YouTube versions).

I do not intend for video to replace photography at my observatory: I intend it as an augmentation to the photography. Every once in a while, it is nice to have actual moving footage.

Both techniques have their pro's and con's. Video has accurate timing but low astrometric accuracy (due to the low resolution of the imagery). Photography has a high astrometric accuracy, but less timing accuracy (although by now, after much practise my time residuals are usually well below 0.1s). I think the pro's and con's of both techniques largely even out. One pro point of photography, is that it doesn't need a power supply - meaning you can be more mobile.

Apart from using it on satellites, I also intend to employ the WATEC for meteor surveillance (Peter Jenniskens' CAMS system, if I can get the software to work here, which so far turned out to be problematic) and for observing asteroid occultations.

Flaring Keyholes in a moonlit sky, and a BWGS meeting

The "Supermoon" of yesterday was not my only observational target. The sky was very transparent, and hence even with this full "supermoon" low in the southeast, conditions were fine for satellite observations.

I imaged two Lacrosses and two KH-12 Keyholes: Lacrosse 3 (97-064A), Lacrosse 5 (05-016A), USA 129 (96-072A) and USA 186 (05-042A). In one of the images, Rubin 4/SL-8 (03-042B) was captured as a faint stray.

Both of the Keyholes and one of the Lacrosses (Lacrosse 3) flared: KH-12 USA 129 did so while the camera was open, yielding the picture below (note the Hyades at the bottom):

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Flare times:

USA 129: 20:29:08 UTC
USA 186: 20:14:40 UTC
Lacrosse 3: 19:52:40 UTC

Below images show Lacrosse 3 ascending and brightnening over the chimney (with Canis minor in the upper right corner: this was just before it flared), and Lacrosse 5 descending through the tail of the Big Dipper (the fuzzy arc is a reflection from a nearby lightsource):

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These observations were all done just after returning from a trip to Belgium, where we had a meeting of the BWGS (Belgian Working Group Satellites). It was a small but nice gathering (six attendants, including this author). Below some pictures showing me (left) and Leo Barhorst (right): and BWGS president Bram Dorreman (all pictures taken by Koen Geukens):

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On the agenda were amongst others the future of flash observations; the observations of flaring geostationary satellites earlier this month; while I did a very short photo-presentation on the recent PAN relocation story (see also here). Our host that day was Koen Geukens.

KH-12 USA 129 and a Chinese rocket stage (CZ-2C r/b) cruising up together

Tuesday evening, the sky was very hazy and a waxing moon was high in the sky. Conditions were hence abominable, but I managed to capture both evening KH-12's, USA 129 (96-072A) and USA 186 (05-042A). The pictures are not pretty, as they are quite fogged.

The pass of USA 129 was confusing, as a second bright object close to it was moving parallel to it: at the moment of observation, I was not sure which object was the Keyhole and what the other object was! It took me rather by surprise (and as a result, I mis-aligned the camera for the second image, resulting in only one image).

It turned out to be a Chinese Long March rocket stage, a CZ-2C r/b (09-061B) from the launch of Shijian 11-01 on November 12, 2009. Below is the image, showing them cruising up together in a moon-fogged sky:

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A few days earlier, on 11 March, I observed USA 186 (05-042A), Lacrosse 5 (05-016A) and the USA 144 Decoy (99-028C). I obtained a series of images on the latter, and hopefully these can be employed for a brightness variation reconstruction again (to be reported on later, after I have had some time to do the analysis).

Lacrosse 5 was racing against an untimely field of clouds that evening, yielding this picture of a bright satellite trail and a wisp of moving cloud:

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The satellite did it's "disappearance trick" again during culmination north, reappearing very brightly for a brief period after it.

Earlier that evening, in a still mostly clouded sky, I saw METOP-A flaring brightly to at least -3 at about 20:09:20 UTC (March 11).

The Lacrosse 5 (05-016A) "disappearance trick": comparison of different occasions

Note added 13-11-2011:  visitors coming here through the link on Spaceweather.com, please read this story here first (click link) as there seem to be misunderstandings of what the video shows.


I am behind with reporting my observation activities over the last two weeks. Hereby a quick report however on one part of the observations: the Lacrosse/Onyx 5 (05-016A) SAR satellite.

Amongst the other Lacrosses (4 still in orbit, including Lacrosse 5) Lacrosse 5 is different in that it displays sudden and prominent brightness changes: from very bright (typically +1.5 or better) it goes to naked eye (near) invisibility, with a magnitude drop of at least some 3 magnitudes, in a matter of seconds. After that, it sometimes stays faint during the remainder of the pass: and sometimes it brightens up again after a while, sometimes followed by a second fading event.

This behaviour was coined the "disappearance trick" by me a few years ago. Although the earlier Lacrosses show some brightness variation as well, none shows it so clearly as Lacrosse 5, meaning something in the design of this satellite is different from its predecessors.

I have now been able to capture the satellite in the event of doing the "trick" three times: on 26 September 2009 during the BWGS meeting at Leo's place in Almere; and in the last two weeks on 24 February and 1 March 2010. The pictures and derived brightness profile of 26 September 2009 can be seen here: below are two pictures of the recent 24 February and 1 March observations.

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The captured 24 February occasion was a case of Lacrosse 5 re-appearing and then disappearing again for a second time during the same pass.

I have combined the brightness profiles of all three events mentioned above into one comparison diagram. In all cases the curves are composites of 2 or 3 images taken during the pass in question (hence the non-continuous nature of the curves: the gaps are periods inbetween two pictures with no data recorded). The shown lines are 15-point averages to the pixel brightness along the trail.

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It is clear from this comparison that the character of the brightness drop is not the same on all occasions. The 26 September 2009 event for example is more steep and sudden than the more gradual 24 February 2010 event. The 26 September 2009 event on the other hand compares relatively well to the 1 March 2010 event, the latter being perhaps slightly less steep.

Another thing notable is the suggestion of a omni-present brief shallow dip in brightness preceding the "disappearance" event by some 15 seconds (it can be seen near the 10 seconds mark in the diagram).

It is still difficult to make sense of this all. What are we seeing here? Is it a matter of strongly differing reflectance properties of the satellite body with illumination angle? Is it some brightly reflecting appendage on the satellite disappearing from view? Is it a dark appendage on the satellite starting to block view of the illuminated satellite body, or casting a shadow on it? Is it due to some moving part of the satellite, e.g. a moving dish antenna?

Phillip Masding has also probed the strange brightness behaviour of Lacrosse 5: his page with results is here and can be used as a comparison to the results I report above.

Chasing satellites through clouds and unusual brightness behaviour of the STSS Demo 2

The evening of Saturday-Sunday 20-21 February saw a very dynamic weather situation. Fields of clouds came and went very rapidly: the sky could go from clear to clouded to clear to clouded again in a matter of minutes. It made it a big gamble whether a particular object would eb visible or not.

As it came to be, I hauled a nice batch of positions on several objects: Lacrosse 5 (05-016A), the Lacrosse 5 r/b (05-016B), the STSS Demo 2 (09-052B) and the NOSS 3-2 (03-054A & C) duo. I also photographed the NOSS 3-4 duo but the image was too much hampered by cliuds tp reliably measure it. I lost amongst others Lacrosse 4 and the STSS Demo 1 to clouds (the latter a pitty, as it was predicted to pass right through the Pleiades).

Most of the images have some clouds on them: some extensively. Below are a few pictures: from top to bottom they show the Lacrosse 5 r/b amidst clouds; The NOSS 3-2 duo passing between the Pleiades and the Hyades; and the STSS Demo 2 passing near capella and the three Goats:

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The STSS Demo 2 appears to show an unusual brightness variation in the first 2 seconds of the trail (the left part of the trail in below negative image), consisting of what appear to be a series of even spaced modest glints. Note the dashed appearance of the first part of the trail:

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Below is the brightness profile over the trail (grey small crossmarks are individual pixel values, the solid line is a 3 point average), and below that is a graph of the time between brightness maxima visible in the profile.

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Note in the second diagram how the time between maxima is very constant, at about 0.13 seconds, during roughly the first 2 seconds . After that, it begins to wildly vary. As the first diagram shows, the amplitude of the brightness variations is larger in those first 2 seconds too. In fact, after those first two seconds the variation is largely or completely random pixel variation.

The first 2 seconds of the trail are quite different in character from the rest of the trail though: a clear constant, larger amplitude pulsing behaviour. This is very interesting. A second image obtained on the STSS Demo 2 during the same pass showed a quite constant brightness.

Last observations of the year, and 2009 at a glance

December 2009 saw a lot of clouded sky, a few clear frosty skies, and lots of snow (for our country at least). After my December 6th observations (see previous post) I observed on December 13th (under modest conditions) and December 28th (under good conditions).

Targets imaged were the HEO objects USA 179 (04-034A), USA 184 (06-027A) and USA 198 (07-060A), and the STSS Demo objects (09-052A & B); and the LEO objects Lacrosse 2 (91-017A) and Lacrosse 5 (05-016A).

These are probably my last observations for this year, as today is overcast and tonight will see fireworks. So, what did 2009 bring on the observational front?

2009 was a good year. I observed on 77 nights, obtaining a total of 953 positions (8 visually, 945 photographically). They were spread over the year as follows:





These observations concern 32 different classified objects (both payloads and rocket boosters), plus a number of special-interest non-classified objects such as Space Shuttles, GOCE, and the Iridium 33 wreckage:

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Just for fun, I have also plotted all obtained positions on an RA/Declination map:

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The clustering in certain positions is because I tend to select sky areas with easily recognizable bright star patterns. This helps easy aiming of the camrea, and it also speedens initial star identifications during the astrometric reduction of the images.

The Lacrosse 5 "disappearance trick", and a BWGS meeting

On Saturday 26 September, a small number of BWGS satellite observers gathered at the house-boat of Leo Barhorst (Cospar 4253) at Almere. Present were, besides Leo Barhorst, BWGS president Bram Dorreman and me. A number of active BWGS observers alas could not come, hence the rather small group this time.

In the afternoon we exchanged some information, looked at some software, my collection of "black space program" mission, launch and unit patches, and Leo's collection of space-related postal stamps. I demonstrated how I astrometrically measure my satellite photographs for positions, and how I get brightness curves from an image.

The plan was to try some joint observations that evening (we could stay for the night at Leo's boat), and as it was sunny, we started preparations in the early evening. I took below photograph of Leo (seen frontal) and Bram (seen on the back) while they were making their preparations

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The sky was not perfect (and would progressively deteriorate later that evening). From a small green a few tens of yards from Leo's boat, we started by watching Iridium 80 flare to mag. -3.5 close to epsilon Cyg in the eastern wingtip of Cygnus. I took the picture below, a 10-second exposure with the EF 100/2.8 Macro USM:

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Immediately after that I rushed to re-aim the camera and capture the USA 144 decoy (99-028C) passing close to vega in the next minute. Predictions had put the track just west of Vega, and while Bram and Leo were watching there with binoculars I made a series of images. Strangely enough, Bram and leo did not pick it up: and the reason was, after a look at my photographs, that it passed east of Vega, not west! After a puzzled "huh?!?" it dawned upon me: the coordinates of my prediction software were still set on my Leiden locality!

Next up were the objects related to the recent launch of a Russian Meteor weather satellite. Bram and Leo indeed picked one up with their binoculars.

Shortly after that, we watched a nice pass of the SAR Lacrosse 5 (05-016A) with the naked eye. As we watched it, it did it's infamous "disappearance trick" again. It did so during an exposure, that captured the quick loss of brightness very well. It was the first time I imaged the phenomena with my Canon EOS 450 DSLR. It yielded this very nice diagram of the brightness variation (constructed from two images):

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Note how quick the brightness drop is (it takes a mere 4 seconds) and how sharp the turnpoints in the diagram are.

Next up were passes of the KH-12 optical reconnaisance Keyhole USA 186 (05-042A), which briefly attained naked eye visibility and was of course photographed; and the NOSS 3-3 duo (05-004A & C) which were faintly visible to the naked eye as they crossed Cygnus, and yielded two very fine pictures, one of which is below:

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Note the difference in brightness between the A and C components. (note: I mistakenly labelled the C component as 'B' in the image...)

After this, Leo and Bram observed the NOSS 3-3 rocket, which is a flasher. As the sky quality rapidly deteriorated, we called it quits after that and went inside to reduce the observational data.

It was nice to meet and observe together. Leo was a perfect host, and his cat Bankie kept my feet warm later that night.

Lacrosse 5 passing alpha Persei

Earlier this week, on February the 24th, the generally very bad weather of this moment gave way to a short period of clear skies after dusk. This allowed me to obtain some positions on the bright SAR satellite Lacrosse 5 (05-016A) and it's spent rocket booster Lacrosse 5r (05-016B).

Below is an image showing Lacrosse 5 passing close to alpha Persei and the alpha Persei star association.

(click image to enlarge)

Short observing session

Saturday evening saw a short break in the bad weather, and some clear sky. A slight haze and near full moon made the conditions not too excellent, but I managed to catch positions on Lacrosse 5 (05-016A) and the NOSS 3-2 duo (03-054A & C).

Below is a picture of the latter crossing near Polaris.

(click image to enlarge)

Rich batch of objects

The night of 13-14 September was a very clear one. The near-full moon was low in the sky and the sky very transparent.

I hauled a rich batch of objects, including 8 positions on the KeyHole USA 129 (96-072A), the Lacrosses 4 & 5, (00-047A & 05-016A), and the NOSS duo's 3-1 and 3-2 (01-040 A & C, 03-054 A & C).

USA 129 made a magnitude 0 flare at 20:19:20 UTC. The descending part of the flare was captured on photograph.

(click images 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.

Lacrosses and a very fine USA 161 flare

Coming back from a date shortly after midnight of August 23-24, I noted it was very clear, with only occasional small cloud fields passing. This allowed me to photographically target the optical imaging Keyhole satellite USA 161 (01-044A) and the radar Lacrosses 4 & 5 (00-047A & 05-016A).

USA 161 briefly brightened in Cassiopia, featuring a very short mag. 0 flare at 23:44:09 UTC. I was so lucky to have the camera open at that time, resulting in this very fine flare picture (with below it, the brightness profile):

(click images to enlarge)

Lacrosse 5 "disappearance trick" over the Pleiades, UARS and ISS again

The sky keeps being clear, so last evening I had another observing session.

In twilight I observed ISS again, and filmed it again as it passed Mars and descended to the eastern horizon. Below short movie (shot with my Ixus camera in "movie"-mode) shows it (Mars can occasionally be seen in the upper right corner):



I observed UARS in twilight too, on the request of John Locker. It was about mag. +2 in the brightest part of the pass.

Lacrosse 5 (05-016A) made an initially nice & bright pass that brought it very close to the Pleiades. As I was photographing it, it did it's infamous "disappearance trick" right above the star cluster:

(click image to enlarge)

Other objects observed (telescopically) this evening were USA 129 and the NOSS 3-2 duo.

Last but not least, I imaged the moon again through my Meade ETX-70:

(click image to enlarge)

Twice the ISS, and a bag of other objects

Yesterday I observed the International Space Station (ISS) twice. The first observation was in deep twilight, 20 minutes after sunset with the sun at only 4 degrees below the horizon.

I filmed this pass, using the "movie"-mode of my Canon Digital Ixus photo camera. The resulting short movie is below: it shows the ISS descending towards the east.



Later that evening, one pass later, I shot this photograph, which shows the ISS crossing Taurus just before entering earth shadow:

(click image to enlarge)

Both this evening and the morning of today (the 11th) I telescopically observed a number of other objects; the keyhole USA 129 (96-072A), the ELINT USA 32 (88-078A), the SAR satellites Lacrosse 5 (05-016A) and Lacrosse 3 (97-064A), and the NOSS 3-2 duo (03-054A & C) and, as a stray while waiting for USA 32, the old NOSS 6F (84-012F).

In addition, I shot this photograph of the crescent moon through my Meade ETX-70 in the late afternoon/early evening:

(click image to enlarge)

Observing ISS and two of its Progress cargo spacecraft

Yesterday evening was very clear, and provided the rather unique opportunity to see the International Space Station (ISS) pass in twilight, followed several minutes later by two of its cargo Spacecraft: Progress-M62 (07-064A) decoupled from ISS on Wednesday and now moving away from it carrying garbage, and Progress-M63 (08-004A) launched from Baikonur in Kazachstan on Wednesday and on its way to the ISS with fresh cargo. Seeing two Progress spacecraft in free flight on the same evening is unique.

ISS was the first to pass, still in deep twilight, at 18:15 local time, being around mag. -3. Five minutes later Progress-M62 followed on a trajectory a few degrees higher, grazing the Hyades cluster, and being about mag. +1. And twelve minutes after that, the newly launched Progress-M63 followed in a very similar trajectory. By that time, although the sky was still bright due to twilight, it was dark enough to try to photograph it. The resulting photograph has a very bright background drowning the trail, but after some image manipulation for brightness and contrast it is visible:

(click image to enlarge)

I logged a point for Progress-M63 through the telescope, and the endpoint of the trail on the image above provided a second point.

Later in the evening I observed Lacrosse 2 (91-017A), which by now was 34.6 seconds early, the USA 32 ELINT sat (88-078A), Lacrosse 5 (05-016A) and the NOSS 3-2 duo (03-054A & C), the latter duo on two consecutive passes.

Like previous days it was again clouded in the morning, so no chance to observe USA 193.

Tomorrow evening is going to prove very interesting, I hope. The weather prospects are good, and if the launch isn't postponed this evening, I will have a very good 80 degree post-twilight pass of Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-122. In addition, the ISS and the two Progresses can be observed again. Plus, the Soyuz rocket booster (08-004B) from the Progress-M63 launch could prove very interesting, as it will make two passes (one visible and one in shadow) while close to decay.

NOSS 3-4, Lacrosse 5 oddity, and not every DCF-77 clock is the same... (updated)

This morning, unlike yesterday evening, it was reasonably clear. There was some haze in the sky, but conditions were good enough for decent observations. Targets were the ELINT sat USA 32 (88-078A), two of the NOSS 2-3 components (96-029C & E) and the NOSS 3-4 duo (07-027A & C). USA 193 (060-57A) stayed too low in the sky for my location this morning.

The NOSS 3-4 duo (07-027A & C) is still actively manoeuvering. I observed them on two consecutive passes this morning. Compared to their 08031.475 elsets they were 46-50 seconds late, indicating that they have moved up again between Jan 31 and early Feb 3.

The reason for this manoeuvering is that during their launch last year, the final stage of their rocket booster quit too early, and the payloads as a result entered into a too low orbit. Since that moment, they are gradually working themselves upward to their intended orbits, using their own onboard engines.

In my previous post I noted the purchase of a new DCF-77 clock, following the failure of my old trusted Oregon Scientific DCF-77 clock. Careful comparison to several other DCF-77 clocks however, reveiled that the new clock is 0.40 seconds early to other DCF-77 clocks. That was an unpleasant surprise. I ditched the clock and purchased yet a new one, which runs synchronous with other DCF-77 clocks I compared it too. Interestingly, this new clock was a cheap 7 euro one purchased in a large store chain here in Leiden (HEMA: clock name is "Portland"). The clock that runs 0.40s early (brand: Cresta) was much more expensive. So more expensive evidently not always translates to "more reliable".

As a result, my observations on the evening of Feb 1 need to be corrected by 0.40 seconds.

Those observations concern USA 32 again, and Lacrosse 5 (05-016A). I have the latter 2 seconds early and 0.6 degree off-track compared to elset 08027.73865531. However, this was a difficult observation during a short clearing, with clouds moving into the FOV almost right after the sat passed it, so I cannot rule out I made a mistake in the reference stars used.

Update: an 05-016A observation I made on the evening of Feb 3rd is in-line with elset 08027.73865531 again (delta T only 0.07s, x-track 4 arcminutes), so the Feb 1st result indeed must be the result of a mistake in reference stars used.