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

A keyhole, a Trumpet, IGS 1B, and strays

Yesterday evening it was clear again. I captured the KH-12 Keyhole USA 186 (05-042A), and also IGS 1B (03-009B). In addition, two strays were captured, and the EF 100/2.8 Macro USM was used to capture the Trumpet ELINT USA 184 (06-027A) again.

In one of the pictures with USA 186, a piece of Delta 1 debris, 75-027E, was captured as a bright stray. In one of the images with IGS 1B, the Kosmos 1975 rocket (88-093B) was captured as a bright stray. Below is the latter image showing a part of Northern Cygnus:

Click image 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.

Observations, a flare, and a logo

Over the past week I could observe on four evening: 11/12, 15/16, 16/17 and 17/18 August. Targets imaged on these nights were the three KH-12 Keyholes (USA 129, 161 and 186), the Japanese prematurely defunct SAR IGS 1B, and the US SAR Lacrosse 3.

USA 186 (05-042A) provided a nice mag. -2 flare on 16 Aug at 20:52:07.0 UTC. It was captured in an image, but unfortunately a too hasty camera pointing meant the satellite run out of the image before the end of the exposure. the flare is on it though, close to the image edge. Below is a crop of the relevant part of the image, and the derived brightness profile.

Note that the "saw-tooth" pattern in the profile is due to the satellite trail being at ~45 deg angle to the pixel orientation, i.e. it is an artifact of the pixel grid.

(click images to enlarge)

In a moment of boredom last weekend, I designed something long overdue for SatTrackCam Leiden (Cospar 4353): a logo.

It is a bit inspired by the "patches" the NRO employees create for their covert space missions (see here and here for a discussion and examples). Hence all symbols used have some meaning (have fun interpreting!). The Latin(ish) roughly translates to "All Your Nightly Secrets Are Belong To Us", a pun at the NRO's credo "We Own the Night" used in some of their patches and the infamous "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" of gaming/internet lore.

Flaring Keyhole USA 161

Yesterday evening/early night was a night with intermittent very clear skies, and large cumulus fields roving the skies. I was lucky though with the selected targets, although some narrowly escaped the roving cloud fields only. I observed 3 Keyholes (USA 129, USA 161 and USA 186) and Lacrosse 3.

USA 129 (96-072A) was imaged low in the sky in a small gap between clouds. USA 186 (05-042A) was imaged in twilight and the trails were rather faint. It briefly flared to mag. -1, before the camera was open, at roughly 22:59:50 UTC.

USA 161 ((01-044A, a Keyhole high-resolution optical reconnaissance satellite, like the other two USA objects mentioned) also briefly flared to -1 a few times. It did so twice while the camera was open, at 23:28:13.40 UTC and 23:30:17.15 UTC, resulting in the pictures below:

(click images to enlarge)

The second image yielded this brightness profile, with the flare saturating at the peak:

(click diagram to enlarge)

Clear nights, and the NOSS 3-4 rocket brightness behaviour

A series of clear nights the past week, allowing a series of observations of the STSS-ATRR rocket (09-023B) and two Keyholes, USA 186 (05-042A) and USA 161 (01-044A). 09-023B keeps being an interesting target, as its orbital evolution is that quick that it necessitates continuous coverage. The current orbit projects decay around mid-August.

About a week ago, on May 19-20th (see here), I obtained images on the NOSS 3-4 r (07-027B). This spent Centaur rocket of the NOSS 3-4 launch shows a slow brightness cycle. I obtained some partial brightness profiles from the trail photographs, including an interesting one covering one of the brightness peaks:

(click diagram to enlarge)

It can be clearly sees that this (10.05 s) part of the cycle consists of two components, a slow modestly exponential brightness development with a short narrow peak superimposed on it.

Flare evening

Yesterday evening 19-20 May was an evening of unpredicted flares.

It started with the International Space Station (ISS) in deep twilight. After a splendid zenith pass, while at 40 degrees altitude descending to the East, it shortly brightened to a dazzling mag. -8.

Somewhat later, still in twilight, it was the Keyhole USA 129 (96-072A) flaring to mag. 0. I caught one of the flares on photograph, just south-east of Regulus against a bright blue twilight background. Below the image ( plus a detail) and the brightness profile:

(click images to enlarge)

Somewhat later in the evening, I was next treated to a spectacular mag. -7 flare of IGS 1B (03-009B) while it was passing through the zenith, alas just after the camera shutter closed. The flare was a bright orange-yellow and lasted maybe a second (approximate time, not too accurate: 21:25:00 UTC).

Apart from these flaring objects, observations were also obtained of the NOSS 3-4 rocket (07-027B), showing its regular slow brightness variation; the keyhole USA 186 (05-042A), the SAR satellite Lacrosse 3 (97-064A) and the STSS-ATRR rocket (09-023B).

I also visually observed the STSS-ATRR itself (09-023A), but due to pressing a wrong button of the stopwatch lost my two points on it alas.

In all, a very fruitful night!

STSS-ATRR rocket again

Yesterday evening it cleared, and I observed the STSS-ATRR (09-023A) through the ETX-70, and photographically also its rocket (09-023B). In addition, I captured the KeyHole satellite USA 186 (05-042A).

The pass of the STSS-ATRR rocket (09-023B) provided the nice image below, showing it while crossing Lyra.

(click image to enlarge)

Flares, strays and spy sats

The evenings of September 1st and 3rd saw a nice catch of satellites. My new camera system (Canon EOS 450D + EF 50/2.5 Macro) really is a sat magnet, which is also apparent by the number of strays captured in images with classified objects.

Objects imaged these nights include the KeyHole satellites USA 129 (96-072A) and USA 186 (05-042A), the SAR sats Lacrosse 4 & 5 (00-047A and 05-016A), and the Japanese sats IGS 1A and IGS 1B (03-009A and 03-009B).

IGS 1A is an example of a sat that would normally be beyond reach of my older camera system, but is well within reach now. The KeyHoles are captured much more easily now too.

Moreover, the quality of the positions obtained seems to be better. This is due to both the better image quality (less ambiguity in the start and end of the trails, as the images are much less noisy and the trails brighter), and to a much better, consistent timing behaviour of this camera.

Because of the more narrow field of the EF 50/2.5 Macro lens, I employ the laser (the same I use for pointing my telescope) to point the camera. Below is a photograph of what this looks like (although in reality the beam is less bright visually: this is the result of a 10 second exposure). Stars visible are from Cassiopeia and Perseus, with the double cluster visible just beneath the laser beam.

(click image to enlarge)

On September 1st, I watched Lacrosse 5 (05-016A) together with my neighbour. It was nice and bright, and did it's infamous "disappearance trick" while just past the zenith. I had just been explaining this peculiar behaviour to my neighbour, so he got a nice demonstration!

Some nice flares were captured too these evenings. Below images show a mag. -8 flare of Iridium 72 on 3 Sep 20:15:29 UTC, and a brief mag 0 flare/glint by KeyHole satellite USA 129 (96-072A) at 20:33:34 UTC on the same evening. The curtain-like structure on the Iridium image is due to a moving patch of clouds.

(click images to enlarge)

Several strays were captured as well, mostly spent Russian rocket boosters.

Purple volcanic twilights, and KeyHole satellites

Last Friday evening was clear again. Looking outside in twilight, I noted the sky was amazingly purple, due to volcanic aerosols spewn by the Kasatochi volcano in the Aleutians. I walked a few blocks to the Witte Singel canal and shot this picture, with one of the domes of Leiden Observatory silhoutetted in the far distance:

(click image to enlarge)

Later that evening, I captured two Keyholes, USA 129 (96-072A) and USA 186 (05-042A), the Japanese satellite IGS 1A which made a small manoeuvre recently, and a very fine mag -3 flare by Iridium 65. Unfortunately, clouds came in later in the evening.

(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)

USA 186 and ISS

After a strange day with clouds in the morning, thunderstorm and pouring rain in the afternoon, and sun but cirrus in the late afternoon and early evening, it cleared during evening twilight.

I observed the Keyhole satellite USA 186 (05-042A) make a nice pass. Being invisible to the naked eye first, it made a short bright flare in Bootes and then brightened to mag. +3, being steady after that, crossing into Ursa Major. I got two trail photographs with the EF 50/2.5 Macro, on the last it disappears behind the roof. Hence, 3 points were the result. Compared to the 2.5 days old elset 08209.08611721 I have it 1.25 seconds late and 0.12 degrees off cross-track.

(click image to enlarge)

A few minutes later the International Space Station made a fine pass. It was bright, at least -4 when traversing into Aquila. I shot a series of 10s pictures with the Tamron 18-50/2.5 lens at 18mm, and combined them into two stacks.

(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)

Flares of USA 186, Lacrosse 3 and an Iridium

Another very clear evening in which the sky was so transparent that the moon was no real hindrance.

I observed 3 flares. Iridium 47 flared to mag. -1.5 in twilight at virtually the same spot as yesterday's -6 Iridium 25 flare. The picture is below.

At 20:52:23 UTC I saw USA 186 (05-052A), which was faint during the rest of its pass, flare to mag. -2 in the north. Alas not on photograph.

I was more lucky with Lacrosse 3 (97-064A) which flared to mag. +1.5 at 21:01:34 UTC while the camera was open (see below image, the bright star left is Arcturus).

I also observed IGS 1B (03-009B), on a zenith pass. It was faint again and irregular, quite unlike its visibility in earlier years.

I am very tired currently, but given the unusually clear skies I might try some additional observations this morning on the new IGS objects.

(click images to enlarge)

4 flares in 15 minutes

This morning and evening of the 22nd, I managed to catch a number of fine flares again, four of which occurred within a time span of 15 minutes:

- two Iridium flares (-2 and -5, by Iridium 61 and 03 resp.);
- two USA 186 flares (-0.5 and 0), 20:44:33 and 20:45:26 UTC;
- a Lacrosse 4 flare (+1, predicted by Phil Masding), 20:41:54 UTC.

Images are below. The evening ended early when cirrus came in.

The Lacrosse flare was predicted by Philip Masding (just like the Lacrosse flare of yesterday) to within 2 seconds of time exactly.

Flares never bore me, they are always exciting to watch, and even more so when they occur at random and are so nice to do so while the camera is open....

(click images to enlarge)

A timing re-calibration and another flare bonanza

Following the discovery of time discrepancies having crept into my results, I have added a -0.35 second correction as of last evening's results. The results now come much more in-line again.

In order to test this I targeted a number of objects last night, including some Iridium passes. Apart from two Iridium flares, I managed to catch some flares of classifieds again.

Here is Keyhole USA 186 (05-042A) flaring to mag. 0 in the east at 20:21:25 UTC:

(click image to enlarge)

Philip Masding notified me ahead of a possible Lacrosse 4 (00-047A) flare at 21:46:15 UTC: I observed it flaring to mag. +0.5 at 21:46:17 UTC:

(click image to enlarge)

USA 129 (96-072A) flared to -1 at 20:34:30 UT in the sickle of Leo, alas inbetween two images, and in general was bright in the first half of its pass:

(click images to enlarge)

ISS made a nice pass close to Procyon in deep twilight. The wisps of cirrus still present at that time would rapidly dissolve:

(click image to enlarge)