NOSS 3-4 duo through Perseus

An initially very clear evening today allowed observations again. Lacrosse 3 (97-064A) was captured, along with NOSS 2-3D (96-029D) and the NOSS 3-4 duo (07-027A & C). USA 32 (88-078A) was captured as a very faint trail but not measured.

A mistake of one minute in the timing while trying to photograph the 96-029 objects made me miss the C & E objects, but captured the D object at the end of what seems to be a slow flare.

One of the images of the NOSS 3-4 duo, the one where they cross Perseus just below the alpha Persei star association, turned out particularly nice, with lots of stars and two bright trails:

(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)

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)

Bright Keyhole Satellites

A late report on my observations of Wednesday evening 12 March.

After a strong gale in daytime the sky cleared in the evening, although fields of clouds still came and went. A near first quarter moon in the sky was no real nuisance.

Several objects were observed: NOSS-es 2-3 and 3-4 and the NOSS 3-4 rocket, plus two KeyHoles: USA 129 and USA 186.

USA 129 (96-072a) was bright again just after it emerged from eclipse. I observed it telescopically and obtained a photograph, yielding 4 positions in total. The visually obtained data dn the photographically obtained data agree well. The image is below and shows it near Castor and Pollux:

(click image to enlarge)

The other Keyhole observed, USA 186, flared short and bright while the camera was open:

(click image to enlarge)

96-072A was 0.5s early, 05-042A 0.5s late, 07-027A on-time, 07-027C perhaps some 0.3s early (I might have been a tad "fast"with the stopwatch on this one though), and the rocket 07-027B was 1.6s late. The 96-029 C & D components were both 0.4s early, the E component 0.2s early.

Yesterday evening (Saturday 15 March) the sky was too hazy to do serious satellite observations. I did shoot some nice moon images though. Below is an image of the craterland on the southern hemisphere (click it to see it at full screen, full resolution), plus a mosaic image constructed from 3 partial moon images. They were taken through my Meade ETX-70 with my Canon Digital Ixus 400 compact camera.

(click images to enlarge)

USA 129, and an unknown object

Friday evening was clear, albeit with occasional wisps of cirrus traversing the sky. Back home from my new job in which I started last week, I could do some observing again.

First I tried to observe two predicted zenith passes of USA 193 debris, but didn't spot anything.

Next target was Lacrosse 3 (97-064A). I selected a star field close to beta Umi near RA 15:00, dec +76 45', through which Lacrosse 3 would pass at 19:46:30 UTC (March 7).

Just before the expected appearance of Lacrosse 3 in the FOV, suddenly a very fast object of about mag. +7.5 crossed through the lower part of the (4 degree) FOV. It moved west-east and roughly parallel to the predicted Lacrosse track. It was very fast, maybe even moving as fast as 1.5 degree/second. It caught me completely by surprise, so it took me some time to realize what happened and try to fix an approxiate time. With a plus-minus of say 20 seconds in time, the resulting position (in IOD format) is about:

99999 08 999A 4353 G 20080307194600000 17 75 1511063+756260 36 S

Given the fast speed and general direction of movement, my thought was immediately that this could be a piece of USA 193 debris. It doesn't match any of the published catalogued debris pieces though. And according to Ted, it would be somewhat too far from the expected plane of these fragments. So the object remains unidentified.

Some 30 seconds later Lacrosse 3 sailed into the FOV.

Other objects tracked that evening were all of the NOSS 3-4 objects (07-027A, B and C) including the Centaur rocket, the NOSS 2-3 objects (96-029C, D and E). I also observed two of the KeyHole photo-reconnaissance satellites: USA 129 (96-072A) which initially was bright, and USA 186 (05-042A). They were all early, especially USA 129.

I catched the latter on photograph too, while it crossed close to Castor and Pollux in Gemini, being about mag. +0.5:

(click image to enlarge)

All in all, 16 positions were logged on 10 objects this evening, two of which were camera positions, the rest was visual. The visual position obtained for USA 129 and the two camera positions agree well.

Flaring KeyHole USA 129, and two productive evenings

The last two evenings saw a very clear sky again. Tuesday evening was cold and windy, yesterday evening a bit more comfortable. I obtained a rich batch of positions using both the telescope and the camera: 20 positions on 9 objects on the 26th, and 18 positions on 7 objects yesterday evening. These objects include KeyHoles USA 186 and USA 129, Lacrosse 4, the Lacrosse 5 rk, and various NOSS components.

Yesterday evening at about 20:38 UTC the KeyHole USA 129 (96-072A) flared while crossing Perseus. I was observing it through the telescope at that time and noted it was bright and then faded. I cannot give an exact peak time and magnitude however, as I was concentrating on obtaining positions. I had the camera open at that time, and it catched the onset of the flare very nicely:

(click image to enlarge)

Here is the brightness profile:

(click image to enlarge)

I also captured Lacrosse 4 (00-047A) on photograph, and observed it visually. It was on time, but definitely somewhat off-track.

(click image to enlarge)

I tried in vain to spot the USA 193 debris pieces D and K last evening.

Finally, another picture of the KeyHole USA 129 (this time steady in brightness) shot on the evening of the 26th:

(click image to enlarge)

Lacrosse 2 manoeuvred again (updated)

Yesterday evening was very clear. While looking up some deep-sky objects and while waiting for target satellites to appear, I saw several faint strays.

Lacrosse 2 (91-017A) was 21.6s early and 0.16 degree off-track relative to a week old elset 08027.82795435. Hence, just like early January, it appears to have manoeuvred again.

Update: Russell Eberst's data of the same pass confirm my observation. From a very preliminary analysis I did, it seems that the manoeuvre entails a similar mean motion change by about +0.0005 as was the case early last month.

Other objects observed this evening were the ELINT sat USA 32 (88-078A) and the NOSS 3-2 duo (03-054A & C). In addition, I observed the International Space Station making a pass through Taurus just beneath the Hyades and Pleiades. I had not realised the decoupled Progress M-62 would be following it closely, so I missed that one (it also was just too far behind ISS to show up on the photograph I shot, see below).

(click image to enlarge)

It was overcast this morning so again no chance to observe USA 193. It is still overcast, so I am going to miss both the old and new Progress (the latter launched today) tonight. I hope it clears in time to observe them and the Space Shuttle STS-122 that is scheduled to launch next Thursday.

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.

Peeping through holes in the cloud cover

The past two days the atmosphere has been very dynamic here. We had a gale yesterday, and both yesterday night and the night previous to that cloud cover and short but bright clearings followed each other up unpredictably.

I did try to do some observing, but as a result of these dynamic weather conditions I lost most selected objects to untimely cloud fields: apart from the NOSS 3-2 duo (03-054 A & C) on Wednesday night the 30th Jan.

When observing through the telescope, these NOSS duo's are very attractive targets. They operate in thight couples (the older ones even in trio's), crossing the same field of view with usually only a few seconds between them. It is very cool to see two bright yellow sparks chase each other through the FOV.

NOSS-es are operated by the US Navy, the acronym meaning Naval Ocean Surveillance System. They intercept radio traffic from ships and use it to pinpoint the locations of enemy shipping.

My trusted Oregon Scientific DCF-77 clock (a radio controlled clock getting its time signal from an atomic clock in Frankfurt) died last Wednesday after years of faithful service. Wednesday evening I temporarily used the clock on my weather station, which is also DCF-77 controlled, as a back-up, but I do not completely trust it so I ordered a new DCF-77 as a replacement for the failed one. It arrived today.

Of NOSS-es, strays and neighbours

Yesterday the 22nd of January started clear and ended clear, albeit with a near full moon. I did an observing session with the ETX-70 telescope in morning twilight as well as in the evening.

The result: positions on the NOSS 3-4 pair (07-027A & C), the NOSS 3-3 pair (05-004A & C) and the NOSS 3-2 pair (03-054A & C), plus stray observations of the ELINT sat USA 32 (88-078A) and the spent Russian rocket Kosmos 1171r (80-026B). I also observed the NOSS 2-2 C & D pair, but couldn't log points (There was only a short time to re-aim the telescope between this pass and the NOSS 3-3 pass, and it then took me just too long to verify I had the correct star field. I saw them pass the FOV but couldn't get to clock them in time.).

During the morning session I unintendedly startled one of my neighbours when she came out of her house and saw me on the courtyard with my telescope. She went into a panicky fit as a result. This was just as I was about to catch 07-027A. The resulting melée and the added unexpected appearance of 88-078A as a "stray" only 11 seconds before 07-027A make me suggest to use the 07-027A point with some caution (by the time of 07-027C I should have regained my composure).

Some time after the end of the evening session, I portrayed the nearly full Moon. Below image is a quick shot made by simply pressing the (non-removable) objective lens of my Canon Ixus compact on the eyepiece of my ETX-70 telescope. Some after-editing has been done to the image to bring out detail.

(click image to enlarge)

NOSS-es, Lacrosses and ISS

Yesterday evening the 9th it was clear in twilight, but clouds came in a while later. Nevetheless there was time enough to get out the ETX-70 again and bag the NOSS 3-4 duo (07-027A and 07-027C), the NOSS 3-3 duo (05-004A and 05-004C) and Lacrosse 3 (97-064A). In total, 7 points were obtained. In the morning of the 10th, I observed the International Space Station just before clouds again interfered.

About 3 minutes before the NOSS 3-4 duo pass, another faint sat crossed the telescope field in a similar trajectory. I was just making a last check of the star field in view against a plotted map to ensure I had the correct location in view, so hadn't the stopwatch in my hands. At first I was a bit worried it was one of the 07-027 objects but very early, so I was relieved when 3 minutes later the real 07-027A sailed into the FOV.

Later that night it cleared again. Below is the image of the ISS I shot a few hours later, during the morning hours. It can be seen passing from Corona borealis into Hercules. It was bright, around mag. -4. My main intended target for that early morning was Progress M-61, but clouds (already visible in the ISS image) intervened.

(click image to enlarge)

More NOSS 3-4

It shortly cleared around twilight this evening. There were flying clouds and some thin high altitude streaks in the sky, but I managed to get a pass of the NOSS 3-4 A and C pair (07-027A, 07-027C) and get two points on each as they passed close to mu Andromeda. Like during my observ ations on the 6th, the sats had a clear yellow colour.

This time I had no trouble with handling the stopwatch to retrieve the logged timings any more. Also, comparing with other observer's results, my timings seem good, but I might need to work a bit on the cross-track error.

Shortly after the observation cloud cover returned.

USA 193, first ETX observations of NOSS 3-4, and comet 17P/Holmes

Last two nights (the evenings of 2008 Jan 5 and 6) were the first nights I tried to do visual position determinations on fainter satellites. Targets were the NOSS 3-4 A & C pair (07-027A & 07-027C).

The Meade ETX-70 (see picture below), a small and compact 7 cm/f 350 mm (F5) rich-field refractor, turns out to be a very nice instrument for satellite observing. It was cool to see 07-027A sail majestically in and out of the FOV, half a minute later followed by 07-027C. At 14x magnification with the 25 mm eyepiece, the FOV is over 3 degrees with (from the light-polluted mid-town location Cospar 4353 in Leiden center) a limiting magnitude at mag. +9.5.

(click image to enlarge)

The Meade ETX-70. Attached is a home-made piggyback mount for my camera

I had some problems operating my (new too) stopwatch though. During the Jan 5 attempt, I pushed a wrong button when I wanted to read out the memory, resulting in the loss of all 4 points. During the Jan 6 attempt, I did the same with 2 points on 07-027A after I had succesfully retrieved 2 points on 07-027C (plus another point on the same object taken during an earlier pass). Evidently, I still need some practise. Logging with the stopwatch, estimating the fraction between two stars crossed, and operating Ted's Obsreduce software all went surprisingly well though.

On Jan 5th in deep twilight I observed USA 193 (06-057A) zipping by. I got two camera points on it but apparently the times are off. This failed (?) reco sat keeps being a fine object to view as it is bright and very fast. If it's orbit continues to decay as it does now, the object will end its life around the first week of April.

On Jan 6th I observed, apart from the NOSS 3-4 pair, also Lacrosse 2 & 3.

The evening of January 6th was very clear, and I used the ETX-70 to function as guiding mount for the Canon Ixus camera. Target: comet 17P/Holmes.

The comet has grown very large (about 1.12 degree currently) and vey diffuse. Below is a photograph showing the comet which is a stack of 39 images of 15 second exposure each. The open cluster in top of the image is M34, the bright star below the comet is Algol. Because the ETX-70 is on an alt-azimuth mount and the comet was near the zenith, where the effect is largest, some field rotation is visible in the stars near the image edges.

(click image to enlarge)

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.

The NOSS 3-4 centaur rocket (07-027B): a nice new object

June 15 2007 saw the launch of NRO's NOSS 3-4 satellites. They belong to the new US Navy twin satellite constellation (the old NOSS-es were trio's) the purpose of which is to pinpoint the origin of shipping communications.

The payload couple (07-027A & C) and the last stage NOSS 3-4r Centaur rocket (07-027B) are now being tracked by amateurs. For me, the Centaur stage (07-027B) is the most interesting, as it is bright. It is also slow moving. And making zenith-passes near midnight for my station at the moment. Which all makes it a fine photographic target.

The object slowly tumbles, as is apparent from a very slow variation in magnitude. Over the course of a minute or so, it varies between mag. +4 and +1.5 on a zenith pass.

Last week I observed the object for the first time, on 3 different nights including last night (I observed a fine list of other objects from my regular observing program as well on these nights).

On the first two nights I was greatly hampered by drifting fields of cumuli but could nevertheless capture the object through gaps in the cloud cover. Last night was clear and I could follow it along a large part of its trajectory, the slow amplitude in brightness due to the tumbling being very apparent. Below three images show the object as captured on the nights of July 29-30, 30-31 and July 31-Aug 1.

(click images to enlarge)

Last night the first (out of 3) image of the object suffered from an attempted counter-intelligence attack though ;-)

Frenkie, the cat of my neighbour, joined me at the courtyard that night and started to hug me and my camera tripod in the way cats do. As a result the first image I obtained contained a wobbled satellite trail and I did not measure it. I chased away Frenkie, as lovely as he is, and shot two more images one of which is shown above.

(Frenkie is now suspected to be back at his CIA headquarters, reporting to his commander, who carefully trained him: "Meooow, mission only partly accomplished").

I also had an Iridium flare path center coming almost exactly over my house last night. It concerned Iridium 67 (98-021F) and it flared brilliantly to at least mag. -8. The flare had a distinct yellow colour.

(click image to enlarge)

The previous night also saw a nice (less bright: mag -1) flare of Iridium 64 (98-021C):

(click image to enlarge)