Satellites far and near

Both Friday and Saturday evening were very clear, and the moon not yet a nuisance untill midnight.

On Friday I targetted both a few LEO and HEO objects. The KH-12 Keyhole USA 129 (96-072A), the SAR Lacrosse 3 (97-064A) and the FIA Radar 1 (10-046A) were observed, although a misalignment of the camera in the case of FIA R1 resulted in only one point on the latter. As I was waiting for FIA R1 to pass, the International Space Station (ISS) made a majestic, very bright zenith pass.

Next I changed the EF 2.5/50mm lens for the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180mm, and targetted two faint and distant HEO objects, The Trumpet ELINT and SBIRS platform USA 200 (08-010A) and the SDS 3-4 data communications satellite USA 179 (04-034A). Two images of both are shown below.

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While sleeping, the G68 Sierra Stars Observatory Telescope in California made images for me that resulted in a position on the enigmatic Prowler (90-097E).

Saturday evening was clear as well. This time, I only targetted LEO objects: the Japanese malfunctioned satellite IGS 1B (03-009B), and both the KH-12 USA 129 and the FIA Radar 1 again.

As I was observing, a group of people attending a birthday party of one of the neighbours came onto the courtyard for a smoke. Curious, they asked me what I was doing, and after a short explanation from my part, the group of six watched in an excited state when IGS 1B made a very bright pass. It was easily visible naked eye, and they all saw it.

Below is one of the images from this evening: the FIA Radar 1 (10-046A) passing through Lyra (brightest star is Vega).

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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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SDS 3-4 (USA 179)

The image below is a part (at 100% pixel resolution) of one out of a series of images I took Sunday evening, using the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180mm lens. It shows the classified military communications satellite SDS 3-4 (USA 179, 2004-034A) . The star field is in Cepheus.

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On the same evening I also imaged the Unknown 070914 (an object of unknown identity discovered by amateurs in 2007, in a HEO orbit) and the KH-12 USA 129 (96-072A).

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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Hollidays, Ötzi, a Deluge, and USA 179 (SDS 3-3)

For most of the month August, I have been out of the country, to Northern Italy. With my GF I visited Bozen/Bolzano in the Italian part of Tirol, to see Ötzi the glacier-mummie; then made a 2-week backpack hike through the Dolomite mountains, going from refugio (mountain hut) to refugio; and next visited Verona and Venice. In all, a very fine 3-week hollidays!

Shortly after getting back, I managed some limited observations on August 24: USA 186 and the USA 179 r.

Two days later, on the 26th of August, a deluge hit my country including Cospar 4353. An incredible amount (for our country) of precipitation fell: in places thsi amounted to over 140 mm, over 2 times the monthly amount, in only a few hours time. Especially in the east of the country, this led to floods and associated water troubles.

At Cospar 4353, some 60 mm of rain is the monthly normal for August. On the night 25-26 and morning of the 26th, in just 18 hours time, 78 mm of rain was recorded by the pluviometer of my weather station. Most of it fell in an hour time around 9:00 am.

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The days following this deluge, were mostly bad with clouds and rain. I managed to resume observations on the evening of August 30th, taking advantage of a short but bright clearing. Target was USA 179 (SDS 3-3), a US military communication satellite in a Molniya orbit.

As it turned out, the satellite was quite off in position compared to (at that time) a 25 days old elset. It was 3.4 degrees south of the predicted position:

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image made with Heavensat

I followed the object over the next nights, 31 Aug, 1 Sep and 2 Sep, in order to provide data for an orbital update. On August 31, the object was again snagged during a short but bright clearing, this time in Cepheus and closer to it's apogee. Below is a single image and a stack of the 4 images obtained:

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Compare the single images of 30 and 31 August, and to the stack of the August 31 to the stack of the September 2 images, all shown here at the same scale (full pixel resolution).

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The difference in angular speed at different parts of it's orbit is well visible.

Other objects imaged these nights were the STSS Demo 1 + 2 objects; MSX, IGS 1B, and on Sept 1 the Russian Progress-M 06M cargoship that had just been decoupled from the ISS the previous day.

Another GOCE flare

Yesterday evening started very clear, but ended cloudy. Nevertheless I was able to bag several objects: the Lacrosses 2 & 3, the NOSS 3-4 Centaur rocket, GOCE flaring, and the HEO objects USA 179 and USA 184.

GOCE (the European Gravity field and steady state Ocean Circulation Explorer) made a zenith pass, zipping close to M31 at mag. +4 to +5 and then flaring briefly to mag. +2 at 17:24:23.15 UTC. It was nice to watch. GOCE is in a very low orbit and moves very fast: the flare almost looks like a meteor to the eye.

The flare was caused by the 67.5 degree panel and the time yields a flare angle of 93.6 degree and tilt of 51.9 degree. The 93 degree angle is consistent for all GOCE flares I so far observed (theoretically, that angle should be 90 degrees, i.e. at the moment of culmination when the sun-observer-satellite flight direction makes a square angle). The miss distance to the theoretical central flare path (quite large in this instance: some 175 km!) doesn't really seem to matter with regard to the flare brightness: they always come out at +2 to +3 (even when, as in this case, the tilt is off from 67.5 degree by over 15 degrees).

Below is the image, the derived brightness profile (edit - please note that the time stated in the upper left corner of the diagram is wrong: I inadvertently mentioned the end of the exposure here instead of the flare peak time), and the observing geometry. Note how the flare peak is slightly asymmetrical, the descending branch is slightly steeper.

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Off to a good start: a GOCE and a Lacrosse 2 flare

2010 started off well with a very clear evening of January 1st. I observed GOCE (09-013A), the Lacrosses 2 & 3 (91-017A & 97-064A), the tumbling NOSS 3-4 Centaur rocket (07-027B), and the HEO objects USA 179, 184 and 200.

I was treated to two small flares: one by GOCE (09-013A) and one by Lacrosse 2 (91-017A).

The GOCE flare was a mild one to about +3, at 17:32:58.0 UTC. It was caused by the 67.5 degree panel. The time of the flare (accurate to 0.1s) yields an angle of 93.2 and tilt of 66.3 with a nominal mis distance to the theoretical flare path (angle 90 degrees, tilt 67.5 degrees) of 19.4 km at the time of observation (and closest approach to 17.1 km 1.2 seconds earlier at 17:32:56.8 UTC).

So far, all the GOCE mild flares I observed were with an angle ~93 degrees. The distance to the nominal flare path of this one was much less than for the three flares previously observed by me, but that doesn't seem to have much influence on the observed flare brightness: they were all around +3 magnitude.

Below are the picture, the derived brightness profile, and a depiction of the flare path geometry based on Simone Corbellini's Visual Sat-Flare Tracker 3D software.

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Unexpectedly, I also captured a brief (<0.5s) flare/glint by Lacrosse 2 (91-017A) at 17:56:58.4 UTC. Below is the image and the resulting brightness profile:

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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.

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:

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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.

USA 179 and 184

After a month-long absence due to amongst other a hollidays in Canada, I was able to do some observations again last Saturday evening. It was very clear (and rather cold).

Due to a social activity earlier in the evening I had missed the LEO window (which is very short this time of the year at 52 degrees latitude), so I popped the EF 100/2.8 Macro USM on the camera and targetted two Molniya objects high in the sky: USA 179 (2004-034A) and USA 184 (06-027A). The first is an SDS-3 communications satellite, the second an advanced Trumpet SIGINT and SBIRS platform.

Both objects showed up brightly on the images, USA 184 nearly stellar and USA 179 creating clear short trails. Here's a part of one of the USA 179 (2004-034A) images, a small field in Cassiopeia:

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I obtained the launch patches of these two objects recently.

USA 179:



USA 184: