An unknown object in (near) Geostationary orbit: Express AM-5?

The evening of December 29 2013 started clear, so I did a small survey of a part of the geostationary belt. Main focus of the session was PAN, as well as Mentor 4 and 6.

Inspecting the images I found an unidentified object in near-Geostationary orbit some 4 degrees east of PAN, between Mentor 6 and NSS 5, on several images (positions here). The image below shows it near M42, the Orion nebula, near 19:17 UT:

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In addition to the UNID you can also see a classified satellite at left, Mentor 6 (2012-034A), a SIGINT satellite also known under the code name Advanced Orion. At right are two commercial geostationary satellites, NSS 5 (1997-053A) and Galaxy 26 (1999-005A).

Cees Bassa in the Netherlands and Greg Roberts in South Africa also observed what is likely the same UNID object later that night. While it is not easy to fit a reliable orbit to such a relatively short span of observations, the suggestion is an object with an inclination near 0 and a Mean Motion of about 0.92 revolutions per day, i.e. an object near Geostationary altitudes.

The Mean Motion could suggest an old object being moved to a Graveyard Orbit. If this is the case, we haven't been able to identify which 'old' object it is yet.

Another option is that this is a new object. The only likely candidate in that case is the Russian satellite Express AM-5 which was launched on December 26th. This object seems to have been temporarily "lost" by JSpOC: as I write this (Jan 2),  Space-Track does not list orbital elements later than December 26th (when it was still in  a temporary transfer orbit).

For the moment, Mike McCants has given it the name UNK 131229 (with the acronym UNK meaning "Unknown").

This observing session also served to check on PAN (2009-047A). PAN is a highly mobile satellite and often moves position in May and December (I have written on the mystery of this satellite before). Not this time, it seems: it is still at the position it has been in for several months, forming a trio with the commercial satellites Yahsat 1B and Intelsat 10:

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Other classified objects imaged this night were the old SIGINT Mercury 1 (USA 105, "Advanced Vortex", 1994-054A), and the SIGINT Mentor 4 (USA 202, 2009-001A). Mercury 1 was placed at 48 E and recovered by me about a year ago.

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During this observing session, I captured a bright irregular orange light moving across the sky: a 'Thai Lantern' ( a miniature hot-air balloon). They are the cause of many false fireball and re-entry reports. Here it is, moving through Orion while carried by the wind:

Two days earlier, on December 27, I also did my periodic check on Prowler (90-097E), using the 61-cm Cassegrain of Sierra Stars Observatory in Markleeville, California (MPC G68).

I concluded the evening of the 29th by making some shots of M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. Unfortunately, some thin haze came in after a while. The image below is a stack of 16 haze-free images of 30 seconds exposure each, with a CLS filter (against light pollution - the images were taken from Leiden town center)) and Zeiss 2.8/180mm lens piggyback on the mount of my C6:

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PAN and Mentor 4 in March

Finally, an update on my observing activities in March. With apologies that it took so long.

In this post, early March observations of the classified geostationary satellites PAN and Mentor 4 will feature. In a second post following this one, I will report on some non-satellite observations: comet PANSTARRS and a fabulous display of Aurora borealis which I observed from Finland.


PAN and Mentor 4

As I noted on the blog before, weather has been extremely bad here since mid November 2012. Many nights were clouded, we had unusual amounts of snow, and spring set in very late (in fact, only last week).

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The few clear nights we had, usually coincided with a bright moon in the sky. As wintertime is a bad time for LEO objects at latitude 52N  (the visibility window is very short, restricted to twilight) the focus is on objects in GEO during this season: but that necessitates clear moonless nights....

On the evening of March 4 I did an attempt, which was cut short when clouds and haze moved in. The pictures came out bad, but I did manage to image PAN (2009-047A) and Mentor 4 (2009-001A), as can be seen in the picture above. Mentor 4 is a SIGINT: PAN probably is too.

PAN was moved again in December-January, this time taking up position at 42.5 E close to the commercial telecom sat Nigcomsat 1R.

Since its launch in 2009, this enigmatic satellite has frequently moved, and this is unusual. PAN was stationed at 33.0 E from late 2009 to May 2010 and then was moved to 38.0 E. It was moved again to 49.0 E in December 2010, followed by a move to 44.9 E in the spring of 2011. Then it was relocated to 39.1 E in the summer of 2011 and next moved to 52.5 E somewhere between late October 2011 and January 2012. In May 2012 it was moved back to 38.0 E. In December 2012, it moved to 42.5 E. No doubt it will move again in the future, perhaps in May as December and May are frequently the months the satellite is moved.

Note: the listed positions for PAN are based on privately archived TLE's for the satellite. The TLE source is Mike McCants and the TLE's are based on amateur observations of the satellite, notably by Greg Roberts (S-Africa), Peter Wakelin (UK), Ian Roberts (s-Africa) and me (Netherlands).

PAN, other Geostationary satellites, and another UNID (this time Greg's)

As reported earlier I had a prolific observing session on Geostationary satellites in the evening of November 18th, discovering amongst others an unidentified geostationary object now temporarily designated Unknown 121118 (see here and follow-up here with imagery by Greg from S-Africa: an more on it near the end of the current post).

Below is some more imagery showing various classified and unclassified objects. All images were made using a Canon EOS 60D with a SamYang 1.4/85mm lens at ISO 1000.


Unknown 20121117 (Greg's UNID)

The November 18th imagery includes imagery of a second unidentified object, Unknown 121117 discovered by Greg Roberts (CoSaTrak) from South Africa a day earlier on the 17th (a third initially reported  'unid 'by Greg turned out to be identifiable as a known object, a Chinese CZ-3C r/b). So Greg recovered my Nov 18th UNID on the 19th, and I recovered Greg's Nov 17 UNID on the 18th: nice teamwork!

The image below shows it together with a number of nearby commercial geosats (the veil-like lighter streaks in the image are cirrus clouds, who had begone to invade an initially clear sky):

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Below is one of Greg's images of the object from 17 November taken from S-Africa: in my image above taken a day later the object has drifted quite a distance more to the West.

(image courtesy Greg Roberts, CoSatTrak S-Africa)

Unknown 121117 is a truely uncatalogued object. There is nevertheless some idea about the identity of this satellite, but I am currently not allowed to provide more information.



PAN

PAN (09-047A) and the nearby commercial geosat Paksat 1R visible in Greg's Nov 17th image are visible on my Nov 18th imagery as well. The image below basically fits to the upper image above (see the Eutelsat pair visible in both images), giving you a sense how Greg's Unknown 2012117 has moved in a day time:

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I have written about PAN on this blog several times before: it is an enigmatic classified satellite that frequently relocates.


Mentor 4, Thuraya 2 and the Mentor 1r

Among the other objects imaged were the SIGINT Mentor 4 (and the nearby commercial satellite Thuraya 2), and a r/b from the Mentor 1 launch, Mentor 1r.

Mentors (the biggest geostationary satellites in existence and the biggest man-made objects in space with exception of the ISS) are relatively bright objects (typically mag. +8):

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I already posted imagery of another Mentor, Mentor 5, as well as the SIGINT Vortex 6 in an earlier post.


More on my UNID, Unknown 121118

This object in an 8.5 degree inclined geosynchronous orbit (see here and here for earlier coverage) remains 'unidentified' (i.e., is not present in public orbital catalogues such as USSTRATCOM's): we are however starting to believe it could be a classified object that has recently been moved to this location from somewhere else. It is currently positioned over 48.3 E and appears stable in longitude:

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Tracking the new NOSS 3-6 (NROL-36) launched September 13th, and imaging USA 237 (NROL-15) and SDS 2-2

NROL-36 (NOSS 3-6)

At 21:39 UTC on September 13th, 2012, the NRO launched NROL-36 from Vandenberg AFB. The launch vehicle was an Atlas V containing a classified NRO payload in addition to a number of cubesats. Several analysts already suspected the classified payload of this launch to concern a new duo of US Navy NOSS satellites.

That suspicion appears to be born out by the first observations of the launched objects, which show two satellites in close formation, typical of a NOSS formation.

The Centaur last stage was the first object from this launch to be observed, by Björn Gimle in Sweden, who observed it 5 hours after launch, and then by BWGS chair Bram Dorreman in Belgium 1.5 hours later, who remarked it was variable in brightness. Alas I was clouded out in Leiden at that moment. Eleven hours after launch, Kevin Fetter in Canada observed it next. Over the following day Russell Eberst in Scotland and Scott Tilley in Canada added more observations.

The payloads were first observed by Kevin Fetter in Canada near 9:43 UTC (Sep 14), 12 hours after launch. Scott Tilley, also in Canada, next observed them on the 15th near 12:34 UT.

On the morning of the 16th, 2 days and 5 hours after the launch, it was clear in Leiden allowing me to join the chase. I (photographically) observed the Centaur r/b pass at 2:49 UTC (see image below) and then the payloads at 2:55 UTC (Sep 16).

The NROL-36 Centaur booster

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The observations were done under difficult conditions: it was somewhat hazy, the passes were at very low altitude due east (only 14 degrees elevation for the Centaur and 21 degrees elevation for the payloads), and the phase angles for the objects were unfavourable, resulting in dim magnitudes (around +7 for the payloads). The resulting images (one of them below) are therefore not quite pretty: even with use of the 1.4/85mm SamYang lens the trails were so faint that they were marginally visible at best. As reported earlier by Scott Tilley, the leading object indeed seemed to be somewhat variable (on some images it wasn't visible at all).

The NROL-36 payloads (NOSS 3-6)

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Over the next days, I'll hopefully be able to obtain much better imagery during more favourable passes (this morning I was alas clouded out again, however....)

USA 237 (Mentor 6?)

That same morning, following the NROL-36 related observations, I took a few images of the area near the bright geostationary Mentor 4 (USA 202, 2009-001A). These images not only recorded this 3-year-old Mentor, but also the geostationary satellite USA 237 (2012-034A), a classified NRO payload launched from Cape Canaveral as NROL-15 on 29 June 2012, employing an Atlas IV-Heavy as launch vehicle.

These were my first observations of this object: tracking of this object over the summer was done mostly by Greg Roberts in South Africa (who was the first to discover the object) and Peter Wakelin in Britain. Over the summer it had slowly been drifting westwards: as of mid-September 2012 it appears to have stabilized at 47.8 E. For me in Leiden it is currently located at 20 degrees elevation in azimuth 129 degrees (low SE), about 6 degrees separated from Mentor 4 in the sky.

USA 237 (NROL-15)

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The identity of this object is still provisional. There have been some thoughts that NROL-15 launched a stealth Misty satellite in LEO/MEO and then progressed to put a decoy (the object designated as USA 237) in geostationary orbit. USA 237 is very bright however (about mag. +8), ranking it among the brightest geostationary objects in the sky, the Mentor SIGINTs. As Ted Molczan showed, they seem very similar in terms of absolute brightness. The likeliness can be well seen in the photographic comparison below, which shows Mentor 4 and USA 237 (the crops come from one and the same image):

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This gives reason to think that NROL-15/USA 237 is perhaps a sixth Mentor SIGINT (i.e., it is Mentor 6).


SDS 2-2

As by-catch of the NROL-36 payload and Centaur observations, I also obtained my first observations of the geostationary SDS satellite SDS 2-2 (USA 67, 1990-097B). It is located at an elevation of only 16.5 degrees, very low in the east for me. To my surprise, it was rather bright and easily visible in the 5-second exposures, of which the one below is one:

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PAN is on the move, and detection of an unknown object in near-GEO

Last Wednesday evening (16 May) saw very clear skies. Combined with the absence of moonlight, an ideal situation to target geostationary objects, which are low in the sky for me at 52 N. As they are low  and I am in an urban environment, I need a very transparent sky.

Normally I use the 2.8/180mm Zeiss Sonnar, but this time I went for the SamYang 1.4/85mm. The limiting magnitude of this fine lens is only slightly less than that of the 180mm, but the FOV is twice as large (10 x 14 degrees). It is a geostationary magnet: in one single image I counted 20 geostationary or near-geostationary objects! In total, the session (a sweep of some 25 degrees of equatorial sky in the S-SE, at elevations of 15 to 25 degrees) recorded 38 objects: 7 classifieds, 30 unclassifieds and one unknown.


An UNKNOWN object on May 16

As part of the session, an object in near-Geostationary space was serendipitously observed that cannot be matched to any known object (for recorded positions, see here). It was slowly moving near the commercial geosats Eutelsat 36A and Eutelsat 36B (00-028A and 09-065A) and was captured on several images, small parts of four of which are shown below (note the movement relative to the stable Eutelsats):

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As Heavensat with the latest orbital catalogues loaded showed nothing in this position I initially logged it as a 'UNID'. Then a check with Ted's IDSat software resulted in a very superficial match with the DSP F20 cover (00-024E), but a clearly non-linear delta T suggested this could be a spurious match (see the questionmark and note under my data report here).  Next Mike McCants contacted me, it was indeed a spurious match in his opinion as his analysis of my data suggested an approximate orbit that does not match the DSP F20 cover at all. So for now, the object is designated as UNKNOWN 120516.

Objects like this do not spontaneously materialize, and there is no recent launch that can account for this object. It is therefore likely an old object being relocated. According to Mike, one possible (but by far not certain) option is that it is the classified object Mercury 1 (94-054A, or USA 105), which has not been observed for some time, being retired and relocated to a graveyard orbit.

Unfortunately, both Greg Roberts in South Africa and me here in the Netherlands were clouded out last night and today, so follow-up using Mike's approximate search orbits is troublesome for the moment.


PAN being relocated again

Another classified geostationary object on the move again is the enigmatic PAN (09-047A). This object has an unusual history of frequent relocations, moving to and fro in longitude each few months. It was at 44.9 E in the spring of 2011, then relocated to 39.1 E in the summer of 2011 and next moved to 52.5 E somewhere between late October 2011 (I still observed it at 39.1E on 23 October 2011) and January 2012, when Greg Roberts noted it missing after which Ian Roberts recovered it at 52.5 E early February.

And now its is moving again: Greg Roberts was the first to note this on May 10 and recovered it on May 14 and May 16 while it was and is moving towards 39.1 E (a position it has previously occupied). I imaged it near 39.1 E too on Wednesday evening May 16. Below is a part of one of the images, showing PAN and several commercial geostationary objects, as well as two old rocket boosters in GTO:

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 Other classified (near-)  geostationary objects observed this evening were the SIGINT Vortex 6 (89-035A, also in the process of being relocated), the SIGINT Mentor 4 (09-001A), it's rocket (09-001B), the Milstar 5 communication satellite (02-001A), the DSCS 3-13 R2 rocket (03-008C) and the DSP early-warning satellite DSP F23 (07-054A).

Apart from these geostationary objects, I observed the LEO object USA 186 (05-042A, a KH-12 Keyhole) as well that evening, in its new orbit after it manoeuvered earlier this year.

Observing Geostationary Satellites from Leiden and Arizona

While the focus was on LEO and HEO satellites earlier in October, I primarily targetted Geostationary satellites last week. Both from my own locality with my own equipment, as well as by means of a "remote" telescope in Arizona.

The two images below were taken from Leiden (the Netherlands) in the early evening of October 23, using my own equipment (Canon EOS 450D + Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180mm).

They show the enigmatic, frequently re-locating PAN satellite (09-047A: see Dwayne Day's article here) and the SIGINT (eavesdropping) Mentor 4 (USA 202) satellite (09-001A), as well as a few commercial geostationary telecom objects: Hellas-sat 2 (03-020A), Thuraya 2 (03-026A) and Paksat 1R (11-042A).

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As can be seen, PAN and Hellas-sat 2 are a very close pair now, so close that I am not actually 100% sure which one is which (the westernmost one or rightmost one is likely PAN). As can be seen in comparison to this post from May, it has relocated again, from 45.0 to 38.9 E - it did so in July, when I was on hollidays.

Somewhat earlier the same week, when the sky in Leiden was overcast, I took refuge by hiring a "remote" telescope again. This time not the 61-cm of SSON, but the 37-cm Cassegrain of Winer Observatory (MPC 857) in Sonoita, Arizona, USA. While a smaller instrument, this telescope has a larger FOV which is good if the satellite is a bit off from predictions, and allows te satellite to be captured on more than one image when a 3-image run is done. Also, it is cheaper to rent.

Targets were two "usual suspects": the enigmatic Prowler (90-097E: see story and links in my previous post here) on October 17 and 21 and the SBIRS-GEO 1 (11-019A) on October 21:

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Note: because the telescope follows the stars, the satellites become trailed, unlike the images shot from Leiden which are from a stationary tripod (hence the stars trail, but the satellites not).

A few non-geostationary satellites were tracked the past two weeks as well. They include the STSS Demo 1 & 2 (09-052 A & B) and the USA 89 r/b (92-086C) on October 22, and the HEO ELINT & SBIRS platform USA 184 (06-027A) on October 15.

PAN, and the NOSS 3-5 duo

Monday evening was a nice clear evening with a very transparent sky.

I observed the NOSS 3-5 duo (11-014 A & B), which was captured in a very fine image with a stray nearby, the rocket from the Kosmos 1697 launch (85-097B). De double parallel trail above is the NOSS duo, the single trail under an angle is the Russian rocket (bright star near trails is Deneb):

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I also took opportunity of the transparent sky to target some geostationary objects low in the southeast. Targets were PAN (09-047A) and Mentor 4 (09-001A):

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Libya jamming Thuraya 2

In an effort to prevent dissemination of information, Khadaffi's forces in Libya are now jamming several communication satellites that serve Libya, including Thuraya, Reuters reports. (see also a press release by the Thuraya company here)

The Thuraya satellite being jammed is Thuraya 2 (2003-026A), a geosynchronous satellite located at 44 degrees East, over East Africa:

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I have imaged this satellite several times, as it's position is close to that of USA 202/Mentor 4 (09-001A). Thuraya 2 is the upper of the two objects in below image, which I shot at 8 December 2010 using the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180mm:

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I wonder whether the jamming is not only aimed at Thuraya 2, but perhaps also at the nearby Mentor. The latter is a SIGINT satellite, and jamming it would hamper US intelligence gathering on what is currently going on within Libya (and northern Africa and the Arabian peninsula in general). It is not clear to me however whether the jamming is "local" on the Thuraya downlink over Libya, or actively aimed (in an "uplink" sense) at the satellite.

Libya was accused of jamming Thuraya 2 earlier in 2006 (see here and here).

Satellites near the Pleiades

Yesterday evening (Saturday 29 January) some satellites seemed to be in love with the Pleiades. In a somewhat hazy sky, I observed Lacrosse 3 (97-064A) cruising near the Pleiades and Hyades in twilight, and half an hour later watched the NOSS 3-4 duo (07-027 A & C) cruise right through the Pleiades.

Below are the resulting images. The top image of the NOSS duo cruising through the Pleiades (movement is from top to bottom, with 07-027A leading) was made using the Canon EF 100/2.8 Macro USM lens: the images of Lacrosse 3 were made using the EF 50/2.5 Macro lens.

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The FIA Radar 1 (10-046A) was imaged as well. Unlike a few nights ago, it did not flare.

The previous night had a better quality sky, so I targetted a few geostationary satellites low above the horizon. Classified geostationary targets imaged were PAN (09-047A), Mentor 2 (98-029A), Mentor 4/USA 202 (09-001A) and the Milstar 5 r/b (02-001B). A number of commercial geostationary satellites were captured as well.

Below image, taken with the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180mm, shows PAN with the nearby commercial geostationary Yamal 202 (03-053A).

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The image below, taken with the EF 2.5/50mm Macro, shows Mentor 2, with the stars of Orion's belt and Orion's nebula M42 at left:

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I also accidentally captured a mag. +2.5 sporadic meteor in one of the images taken with the Carl Zeiss 180 mm (FOV only 5 x 7 degrees!):

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The FIA Radar, USA 179 (SDS 3-3) and more

On the 5th, 9th, 10th and on the 16th of January, the skies shortly cleared in the evening and I observed the FIA 1 Radar (10-046A) making some nice passes through the winter sky. On the 16th it was a particularly close race with clouds coming in (the last image in the series has clouds in the image frame).

Below are two images: one from the 10th showing the FIA 1 Radar passing close to the Pleiades; the other showing it passing through the alpha Persei association on Jan 16th.

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I also observed the Molniya orbit satellite USA 179 (SDS 3-3) on the 16th, which was close to the alpha Persei association too. As it was too faint for the 50mm lens, I used the Carl Zeiss Jena 180mm lens for it (brightest star in image is alpha Persei):

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Other objects observed include PAN (09-047A) on the 9th of January. It is still in the fixed position at 49.0 E where it is since December 24 (see earlier post here). That same evening, Mentor 4 (USA 202), Mentor 2 and the Milstar 5 r/b were observed as well. A flashing H2A rocket, 06-059A, was captured as a stray. On the 5th of January, the IGS R2 r/b was captured in twilight, being very fast and very bright.

Recovering SDS 3-3 (USA 179) and following the UNKNOWN 101208 geosat

Our amateur network had lost track recently of the HEO satellite SDS 3-3 (USA 179, 2004-034A), so it had to be recovered. Radio doppler shift data by an amateur remaining anonymous provided enough information to Ted Molczan to issue a search orbit for visual or camera recovery.

Last evening started clear, and I quickly recovered it very close to Ted's predicted search orbit position. It was about 0.3 degrees off from the latter, so a very neat result! See the image below, the first in a series I shot yesterday with the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180mm:

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After imaging another HEO too, the ELINT USA 184 (2006-027A), clouds came in. The situation turned very dynamic, with the sky going from clear to clouded to clear in a matter of minutes.

I wanted to see if I could image the 'mystery geostationary satellite' which I discovered on 8 December again, a satellite that has now been temporarily designated as Unknown 101208. With my initial December 8 observations and Greg Robert's December 9 & 10 observations, Mike could fit a reasonably good orbit:

Unknown 101208
1 99991U          10344.69054052 0.00000000  00000-0  00000-0 0    03
2 99991   0.0670  10.3484 0003000 147.2004 212.7996  1.00405600    05

The object is drifting eastward at a rate of about 0.5 degrees/day and is now well east of the Turksat 2A & 3A duo (it was west of them when I discovered it on the 8th). It's identity still remains a mystery. Early ideas about it being a DSCS relocating, can now be dismissed.

Under very dynamic conditions, I managed to take advantage of a clearing that lasted literally only minutes (!) to capture it again last evening, along with a few others in the same image. The latter objects were the Milstar 6 r/b (2003-012B) and Mentor 4 (USA 202, 2009-001A), and in addition the non-classified geostationaries Turksat 2A & 3A, Thuraya 2 and Express AM-1.

While the image quality was bad (quite fogged images), the object clearly showed up. Below is one of the images, showing the mystery satellite with the Turksat duo. Compare to the December 8th picture here, when the mystery satellite was still west of the Turksats:

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Again Terra SAR-X and TanDEM-X, and a rich batch of

Yesterday evening was a very dynamic evening, where conditions changed from clear to clouded to clear in matters of minutes.

Besides the unexpected recovery of a lost classified geostationary, I also observed a number of other geostationary satellites, and another fine flare of the close duo TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X (for an earlier observation, see here). They flared to mag. -1 at about 17:18:20 UTC, yielding the image below:

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Movement is from left to right, with TerraSAR-X leading. The distance between the two objects was 3' (arcminutes).

Among the geostationary satellites imaged, were the classified objects PAN (2009-097A) and the Mentor's USA 202 (Mentor 4, 2009-001A) and Mentor 2 (98-029A). In addition, the commercial geosats Express AM-1 (2004-043A), Hellas-sat 2 (2003-020A), Paksat-1 (96-006A, close to PAN) and Thuraya 2 (2003-026A, close to USA 202). This in addition to the recovery of DSCS 3-11 (2000-001A) and the closeby commercial geosats Turksat 2A (2001_002A) and Turksat 3A (2008-030B) .

Below two images show the couple Mentor 4 (USA 202) and Thuraya 2 imaged with the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180mm; and Mentor 2 imaged with the Canon EF 2.5/50 Macro.

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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).

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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!

Again the FIA Radar 1 (NROL-41)

Last night was frosty and very, very clear. In the evening, I took pictures of the KH-12 USA 129 (96-072A), the HEO SDS 3-4 USA 179 (04-034A) and the geostationary ELINT USA 202/Mentor 4 (09-001A), low over the southeastern horizon. At the time of observation, it was some 4 degrees south of Jupiter.

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I took a quick shot at Jupiter too with the Carl Zeiss Sonnar MC 2.8/180, to capture the moons of Jupiter. Here is the image, at 100% pixel resolution:

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In the early morning, at 5:18 am local time, I watched and photographed a very fine pass of the FIA Radar 1 (10-046A) again. It attained a maximum brightness of +3.5 while crossing through Cassiopeia. Below is an image, showing the 'W' of Cassiopeia and the FIA Radar 1 trail (movement is from top to bottom).

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