Updating the changing tumble period of the USA 144 decoy

click diagram to enlarge

The diagram above shows the brightness variation of 1999-028C, the USA 144 decoy, as determined on 21 May 2017. It was created from photometry on video records spanning several minutes of a pass using a WATEC 902H with a Samyang 1.4/85 mm lens. The photometry was obtained using a not-yet-public beta-version of TANGRA.

The brightness of the object shows a slow variation between mag +7.2 and invisible. Fitting a sinusoid gives a peak-to-peak period of 43.528 seconds, +/- 0.005.

I have written on this enigmatic object before on this blog. It was launched from Vandenberg 18 years ago, on 22 May 1999, as NROL-9. This launch is widely believed to have launched the second Misty stealth satellite. Following the launch amateurs found this relatively bright object in a (currently) 2668 x 3150 km, 63.4 degree inclined MEO orbit. The object shows a periodic brightness variation.

This object is, however, not Misty 2. A long term analysis by Ted Molczan showed that the object has an unusually large surface-to-mass ratio in the order of 0.09 m²/kg and its orbit is subject to considerable Solar Radiation Pressure (SRP) effects. The surface-to-mass ratio is an order of a magnitude larger than for normal satellites, suggesting this is something large and lightweight - e.g. something inflatable, so large and light that pressure from sunlight has an effect on its orbit.

We have come to believe that it is a decoy, designed to lure attention away from the real, stealthy USA 144 payload when it was launched in 1999.

As the result of SRP influence, the tumble rate is variable over time: in the order of 60-90 seconds 7-8 years ago, 50 seconds 2 years ago (see here), and now 43.5 seconds.

The slow, changing tumble of the USA 144 (Misty 2) decoy

The USA 144 Decoy (1999-028C)
(click image to enlarge)

Yesterday evening I did some observations on the two evening KH-11 Keyholes (USA 186 and USA 245). Following that, I targeted the USA 144 decoy (1999-028C), an enigmatic object from the launch of the stealth satellite Misty 2 in 1999.

Three classified objects and one unclassified: the USA 144 Decoy, NOSS 3-4 A & C,
and an old rocket booster with CAMEO attached
(click image to enlarge)

At left in the image above is a double trail of the classified NOSS 3-4 duo (2007-027 A & C). In the middle is an old Delta 1 rocket booster (78-098B) with CAMEO on top, an earth magnetosphere experiment from 1978. At right, the shortest trail, is the enigmatic classified object we call the USA 144 Decoy.

I have written about this enigmatic object before. It is a bright object in a high 2665 x 3155 km orbit originating from the Misty 2 Stealth satellite launch in 1999.

(click image to enlarge)

From a study of its orbital behaviour, Ted Molczan found that the orbital decay of this object is notably influenced by Solar Radiation Pressure (SRP). This suggests an object that is very "light" relative to its size, i.e. an object with a large area-to-mass ratio. This does not fit a normal payload, so we suspect that this relatively bright object might have been a decoy to attract attention away from the real, stealth payload.

The USA 144 Decoy is slowly tumbling, resulting in a clear brightness variation. Ted already noted that the period of this variation changes over time, sometimes increasing, sometimes decreasing. This is in line with the tumbling behaviour of other known objects subject to SRP (like fragments of the PAGEOS balloon satellites).

click diagram to enlarge

I took a series of images between 20:19:42 UT and 20:26:12 UT (20 Sep 2015) documenting the brightness variability. The curve fits a peak-to-peak period of about 50.5 ± 0.5 seconds (see diagram above). There is clearly much variation in amplitude peak-to-peak.

The period found, is shorter than the periods found during my earlier determinations in 2009 and 2010, a summary of which is given below:

20 Sep 2015:    50.5 seconds (this post)
5 Sep 2010:     60 seconds   (see here)
20 Jul 2010:    61 seconds   (see here)
2-9 Mar 2010:   88 seconds   (unpublished)
19 Nov 2009:    62 seconds   (see here)
25-27 Aug 2009: 71 seconds   (see here)

This variation of the period over time is in line with expectations for an SRP-influenced object like this.

An Unidentified geostationary object

Yesterday evening was (initially) very clear. I took the opportunity to image the USA 144 decoy (1999-028C)  in the early evening, and then do a survey of the eastern geostationary belt between 23h and 24h LT.

The USA 144 decoy passed close to the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and was caught together with this galaxy and a Breeze-M tank (2011-021C, from the Telstar 14R launch):

click image to enlarge

The session on geostationary satellites later in the evening was ended by incoming cirrus, but not before a fair number of objects was imaged.


A UNID geosat in Orion

Among them was a bright unidentified object in an 8-degree inclined (near-) geostationary orbit captured in several images.

The images below (overview, and then details) show it in Orion together with the Orion nebula, a Chinese r/b (Beidou CZ-3C r/b, 2010-024B), and the classified SIGINT objects Mentor 5 (USA 237, 2012-034A) and Vortex 6 (1989-035A).

click images to enlarge

While the object is unidentified at the moment, it probably is a commercial geostationary satellite that is being moved to a new slot or to a graveyard orbit: but with the tracking network of USSTRATCOM not having noted this yet.

For the moment, the object has been designated as Unknown 121118. It moves in this very approximate orbit (calculated by Mike McCants):

Unknown 121118
1 99991U 12009B   12323.84298080 0.00000000  00000-0  00000-0 0    02
2 99991   8.1179  50.0556 0005003 274.8696  85.1304  1.00270000    07

Initially, I thought it might be the same "unid" reported by Greg in the same general area the day before, but it turns out to be another object. Greg's "unid" was identified by Mike as 2010-024B, a Beidou CZ-3 r/b, actually the same object that can be seen close to USA 237 in the images above.

UPDATE 19-11-2012, 20:20 UT: Greg Roberts just mailed me that he recovered the UNID from South Africa at virtually the same position, so it is geostationary. See follow-up post here.

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:

click image to enlarge

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:

click image to enlarge

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).

Again the USA 144 (Misty-2) Decoy brightness variability, with another specular glint

Since about a year, I am regularly targetting the enigmatic object (related to what was probably the Misty-2 stealth satellite launch) we call the USA 144 Decoy (99-028C) as part of a long term monitoring of the brightness variability of this object. It shows a slow sinusoid brightness variation with a periodicity of tens of seconds. This period of variation slowly evolves over the course of months.

On the night of September 5-6 I captured a series of images again (between 23:11:22.30 - 23:16:32.35 UTC, Sep 5, 2010) allowing the construction of a curve. Below is the diagram: I find it best fits a periodicity of 60 seconds:

click diagram to enlarge

Earlier period determinations were:

20 Jul 2010: 61 seconds (see here)
2-9 Mar 2010: 88 seconds (unpublished)
19 Nov 2009: 62 seconds (see here)
25-27 Aug 2009: 71 seconds (see here)

I should actually revisit the two determinations (Aug 2009, Mar 2010) that are well off from 60 seconds to see whether I didn't make mistakes there.

As can be seen, I again captured a solitary anomalous glint produced in the "valley"part of he curve. Something very similar happened earlier on July 20th. Both glints happened near a brightness minimum. Below is imagery of the latest glint from September 5 (showing one image before the glint, then the glint image, and an image after the glint), and a comparison diagram of the July 20th and September 5th glints:

click image to enlarge

click diagram to enlarge

These spikes are quite specular in character, and suggest there is a flat mirroring surface attached to the object on (if the slow brightness variation of the object is due to exposure of long versus narrow sides) one of the narrow sides.

Continued monitoring of the brightness behaviour of the USA 144 decoy (99-028C)

A year ago I started, on the request of Pierre Neirinck, to photographically monitor the brightness behaviour of the enigmatic USA 144 decoy (99-028C). Some details of this curious object are given in the post here.

On the night of July 19-20 I obtained a series of 8 images in two separate groups (2x 4 images with 10s separation each, the two groups being one minute separated). On two images, both part of the 2nd group, the object is too faint to be seen. Hence, the result was 6 segments of brightness behaviour. This yielded the following brightness diagram:

click diagram to enlarge

The data fit a period of 61 seconds. Over the past year, the period was as follows:

25-27 Aug 2009: 71 seconds (see here)
19 Nov 2009: 62 seconds (see here)
2-9 Mar 2010: 88 seconds (unpublished)
20 Jul 2010: 61 seconds (this post)

Clearly, there are regular changes in periodicity, without a clear direction.

One peculiar observation in the current series, is that of an anomalous bright spike in one of the "valleys" of the brightness profile. The satellite is all but almost invisible in most of the image, except for a brief spike right at the end of the exposure (EF 100/2.5 Macro USM, 1600 ISO):

click image to enlarge

I have never observed this before. It looks quite specular, i.e. due to a glint on a flat reflective surface.

As a comparison, here is the object during it's brightest appearance:

click image to enlarge

I'll keep periodically revisiting the USA 144 decoy periodicity.

Altering tumbling period of the USA 144/Misty-2 decoy (1999-028C)

In August I used a series of photographs to determine the tumbling period of 99-028C, the enigmatic USA 144/Misty-2 "Decoy" (see here).

As the tumbling period of this object is known to alter, I am repeating the experiment. I still need some additional nights to construct a full curve: but the partial curve obtained from the November 19 observations (6 images) already shows a clear change compared to August:

click diagram to enlarge

The sinusoid is for a period of 62 seconds, which compares well to a very similar period visually determined by Ted the same night. It is nice to see the two results coming out so similar.

Back in August the period was 71 seconds. A change of 9 seconds in 3 months time.

In the diagram above, the greyed data points are data from when the trail was very close to both edges of the FOV. Their absolute levels have suffered from lens vignetting, so I scaled them to show that the trend of these points at least is similar to the trend of the period determined from the other four images. The black data points are raw, unaltered data from the latter images.

Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-129 and the STSS Demo-2

Yesterday evening it unexpectedly cleared, in front of a storm depression. This allowed me to observe Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-129, launched the day before and on its way to the ISS.

I observed it twice: first around 16:24 UTC, in deep twilight with the sun only 6 degrees under the horizon. It made a pass culminating at 40 degrees, and was easily visible, especially past culmination. Its brightness was mag. -01 or thereabout.

The second time I observed it, twilight had ended and the sky was dark and clear. The Shuttle stayed low however, entering Earth shadow at 27 degrees altitude short after rising in the west. I made this picture with the Canon EOS 450D and the EF 50/2.5:

click image to enlarge

Next three objects were targetted with the EF 100/2.8: USA 184 and USA 179, both in Molniya orbits, and the USA 144 Decoy (99-028C).

Unfortunately, due to a human error the images came out slightly out of focus. The USA 179 and the USA 144 Decoy series were still measurable though.

At the end of the session, a telescopic observation (Meade ETX-70 at 13.5x, stopwatch and Ted's Obsreduce) was done on one of the recently launched STSS Demo objects: STSS Demo-2 (USA 209), 09-052B. It was only 1.3s early relative to Ted's latest elset.

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

click image to enlarge

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:

click image to enlarge

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):

click image to enlarge

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:

click image to enlarge

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.

The past week saw several bright evenings, yielding a rich haul of satellite positions. Observations were done in the evenings of September 16, 17, 20 and 21. Data were obtained on some of "the usual suspects": the KH-12 Keyholes USA 129 and USA 186, the SAR Lacrosse 2, the HEO objects USA 184 and USA 198, and the USA 144 decoy.

Both KH-12 Keyholes USA 129 and 186 slowly flared to -1 at September 16th: 96-072A at about 19:44:27 UTC in the southeast; 05-042A at 21:01:46 UTC in the northwest.

USA 129 showed another bright slow flare peaking about 20:00:51 UTC on 17 Sep, just after the end of an exposure. I captured the rising part of it.

Below are two pictures of last evening (21 Sept), showing the KH-12 Keyhole plus a faint stray near M31, the Andromeda galaxy: and showing the USA 144 decoy passing close to the ELINT USA 184. The first image was made with the EF 50/2.5 macro lens, the second with the EF 100/2.8 macro USM lens.

click images to enlarge

A keyhole flare, and an SDS-3 satellite (USA 198)

Last two evenings were clear. On September 7th I watched and imaged the KH-12 Keyhole USA 129 (96-072A), together with my neighbour who saw her first Keyhole this way.

On September 8th I imaged both USA 129 and another KH-12 keyhole, USA 186 (05-042A). USA 129 briefly flared to mag. +0.5 at 20:49:21.7 UTC. Below is the image, and the brightness profile (the image saturates near the flare peak). In the same image, slightly below and to the right, another faint trail can be seen: this is a rocket stage, 08-049B, from the launch of a Thai communication satellite in 2008, launched from Russia with a Dnepr rocket, a converted ICBM.

click images to enlarge

I also imaged two high altitude objects: again the USA 144/Misty-2 decoy (99-028C, see my post here and here) and USA 198 (07-060A), an SDS-3 communications satellite in a Molniya orbit. One of the tasks of this type of satellite, is believed to be the relay of data from the Keyholes to ground stations.

click image to enlarge

Below animated GIF shows USA 198 as a moving object (moving from left to right) just right of the frame center:

A Keyhole flaring, a Molniya ELINT and the USA 144 decoy again

The evenings of August 31 and September 1 were clear. On August 31 I targetted two higher objects with the EF 100/2.8 Macro USM: USA 184 (06-027A), an ELINT in a Molniya orbit (see a few posts back), and the USA 144 Decoy again (99-028C). On September 1st, two LEO objects were the target: the KH-12 Keyholes USA 129 (96-072A) and USA 186 (05-042A).

USA 129 brightly flared to mag. -1 at 20:34:11.1 UTC (Sep 1st). The camera was open when it did:

Click image to enlarge

The series of images of the USA 144 Decoy yielded information again about the periodicity of it's brightness (indicating the tumbling period). Like the data of August 25 and 27, it fits a sinusoid with a period of 71 second.

Click diagram to enlarge

The USA 144/Misty-2 launch patch

Following my previous post with an analysis of the brightness variation of the USA 144/Misty-2 decoy (99-028C), one of the readers of this (b)log asked me whether I had any comments on the USA 144/Misty-2 launch patch.

Very little of use is to be gleaned about the mission itself I think, as it is a launch patch rather than a mission patch. Moreover, my guesses are as good as anybodies. I can say this though:

"B-12" is the launch number of this Titan launch. "2 SLS" stands for 2nd Space Launch Squadron. They launched the rocket from Vandenberg AFB. "NRO" of course stands for National Reconnaissance Office, who ordered and operates the payload.

The half illuminated, half in shadow earth globe with the grid and the orbiting satellite, as well as the four stars, are the logo of the 4th Space Launch Squadron. Short before this launch, they were merged with the 2nd Space Launch Squadron.

As for the tiger and the text "The cat's out of the bag!", I have no idea. The text could perhaps refer to the fact that this was the maiden flight of the Titan IV-B in the 404 configuration. Or it could not.

A discussion of the patch by Dwayne Day in The Space Review can be found here.

The tumbling period of the USA 144/Misty-2 Decoy (99-028C)

On August 25 and August 27, I obtained a series of photographs of the USA 144/Misty-2 decoy (see here and especially here). On the request of Pierre Neirinck, I did some simple photometry on the image series, to see whether I could retrieve information out of this on the current tumbling period of the object.

It concerns the following two image series. In both cases, the object is moving from right to left, and the image series has to be "read" from right to left (i.e., the most right image is the earliest in time, the most left the latest). Some clear brightness variation from image to image is already apparent.

Click images to enlarge

From these images, the following two partial photometric curves were obtained, both suggesting a period near ~70 seconds:

Click images to enlarge

Next I combined these two partial curves (from two separate nights) into one amalgamated curve (this included of course some data normalization/scaling), shown below:

Click image to enlarge

The result is a curve that can be approximated by a sinusoid with a period of 71 seconds. This suggests the object's current tumbling period is 2 * 71 = 142 seconds.

(in the curve above, the dark dots are (normalized) data points, the grey line is a 20-point running average, and the black line a sinusoid with a period of 71 seconds)

The Terra (EOS AM-1) satellite, IGS 1B near M31, and more

Yesterday evening the street lights went out in town, due to some malfunction. This made my sky a bit darker than usual.

I captured the KH-12 Keyhole USA 186 (05-042A) in late twilight, followed by a fine pass of IGS 1B (03-009B) some 45 minutes later. It was very bright and on one of the images I captured it passing M31, the Andromeda galaxy.

Click image to enlarge

Later that night (with the streetlights on again) I imaged the USA 144 decoy (99-028C) passing through northwest Pegasus. In one of the images, the Terra (EOS AM-1) satellite (99-068A) was captured as a bright stray as well. This satellite carries the ASTER and MODIS remote sensing sensors well-known to Earth scientists. They were used a.o. to create the Blue Marble images of the Earth.

Click image to enlarge

USA 184 Trumpet (?) ELINT and more

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

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

Click image to enlarge

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

Click image to enlarge

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

Click images to enlarge

Keyholes, IGS 1B and the USA 144 decoy

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

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

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

Click images to enlarge

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

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

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

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

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

(click images to enlarge)

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

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

(click image to enlarge)

More flashing Iridium 33 wreckage, ISS, USA 200 and other high objects

As I wrote in my previous post with the image of USA 129 flaring, yesterday evening I hauled a rich batch of objects.

It started in twilight with a nice pass of the International Space Station (ISS). The image below shows it rising through Orion:

(click image to enlarge)

Next I photographed passes of Lacrosse 3 (97-064A) and the NOSS 3-4 rocket (07-027B).

The wreckage of Iridium 33 (97-051C) was observed flashing again. Two photographs yielded five flashes, and like 3 days ago they fit a flash periodicity of 4.6 to 4.7 seconds. The timings were derived by measuring the flash positions astrometrically, and fitting the obtained positions to the most recent Iridium 33 tle. Here are the two images, with the flashes indicated:

(click images to enlarge)

I also targeted some HEO (High Earth Orbit) objects again, this time experimenting with different camera settings. USA 200 (08-010A) was captured again, this time somewhat better than 3 days ago:

(click image to enlarge)

I combined 4 of the images into an animated GIF, showing the movement of the sky and the satellite over a 1 minute period:



On the same image series I captured a piece of debris, USA 144 debris (99-028C), as a stray. In addition, I imaged another object in a Molniya orbit, USA 179 (04-034A) and the USA 198 rocket (07-060B) this evening.