2017 in a nutshell

All measured positions of 2017
click map to enlarge

The year 2017 was a good year in as far as my satellite observations are concerned. I measured 1768 positions (see map above), on 95 different objects.

1715 of these were measurements on my own imagery from station 4353. Another 49 were on images taken by Paul Camilleri (station 8600) in Australia; and 4 were on imagery taken by Alain Figer in France. The diagram below shows the distribution of observations over the months.

click diagram to enlarge

The year 2017 was an interesting year, with interesting new avenues and quite some press attention. We chased a couple of new launches, of which NROL-76 (USA 276) was a peculiar one. I also started to give some serious attention to the analysis of North Korean missile tests.

I started to use new video software for the observations of objects in LEO in 2017, which increased the output and the accuracy of positions. Objects in HEO and GEO are still photographically imaged.

Medio 2017 I became a consultant in an interesting Space Situational Awareness project for the Space Security Center of the Royal Dutch Air Force. As part of this project I was temporarily employed at the Department of Astronomy of Leiden University.

In July in The Space Review I published an analysis of NROL-76 (USA 276) and its weird flyby of the International Space Station early June 2017, that generated some press attention. Late 2017, my analysis of  North Korean missile test launch imagery generated press attention too.

In December, I was interviewed by the Volkskrant (a major Dutch newspaper) about whether or not an "Arms Race in Space" was upcoming.

Unrelated to satellites, I was involved in the identification of the 6th meteorite of the Netherlands, Broek in Waterland,an L6 chondrite, in February, which we presented at Naturalis (the Dutch National Museum of Natural History) in June 2017. This resulted in me being a guest in the Live RTL Late Night TV show on national television.

In RTL Late Night with the Broek in Waterland meteorite

All in all, quite a remarkable year!

2012 in summary

It is time for a summary of the observations conducted in 2012.

I have been less active in 2012 than in previous years, logging about half the number of observational nights and obtained positions. The number of classified objects tracked however was somewhat higher.

Number of observing nights: 44
Number of obtained positions:  555
Number of classified objects tracked: 50

These data compared to previous years:

 (click diagram to enlarge)

As in previous years, springtime saw most observational activity:

(click diagrams to enlarge)

The following tables give a summary of the objects observed (with the "obs" column refering to the number of positions obtained on the object):

(click tables to enlarge)

Just for fun, I plotted all obtained positions on an RA/DEC map:

 (click diagram to enlarge)

So, what went on and what was special in 2012?

I continued my coverage of PAN and other geostationary satellites (well visible near declination -7.4 in the diagram above). On May 16, an unknown object in GTO (Unknown 120516) was briefly detected. In November, I found an unidentified geosynchronous object at 48 E that turned out to be the relocated object Mercury 1.

In February, a week after the lauch of the Iranian satellite Navid, I managed to photograph it in orbit.

In the last days of March, I filmed and photographed ESA's cargoship ATV-3 several times. This included vudeo and photographs less than 20 minutes after launch, when it made a deep twilight pass over Leiden. I photographed it again in September, after the ATV decoupled from the ISS again. Both times, my video and photography was featured on ESA's website.

2012 was the year of Dutch astronaut André Kuipers' 6-month stay at the ISS. I attended a live in-flight video contact at ESA/ESTEC Noordwijk on May 29. Earlier, on March 16, I listened in live to a radio contact between Kuipers (onboard ISS) and a Dutch school class with my radio receiver.

Live radio receptions were also obtained during the flight of Soyuz TMA-04M on May 16.

Mid-2012, the Japanese spy satellite IGS 1B performed an uncontrolled reentry, and over the spring and early summer I closely followed its demise, which finally took place on July 26, when I was on hollidays in Italy.

Among the new launches tracked was NROL-36, the new NOSS 3-6 duo (see here and here) launched in September. NROL-15 (a new Mentor, Mentor 5) was also tracked

October was very sad, as it saw the death of our cat, Pippi, on October 30. As related in the link, Pippi was a frequent companion during my observing sessions.

November 2012 was special, as I received the 2012 Dr J. van der Bilt Prize of the Royal Dutch Astronomical Association (KNVWS) on November 10 (see photographs here and video here).

December saw some unusual visitors to this weblog, connected to North Korea's first successful satellite launch.

I also did a number of interviews this year.

2012 was also a good asteroid year too. I discovered 3 new asteroids: 2012 SM58 in September using the 0.61-m telescope of Sierra Stars Observatory and a number of objects with Krisztián Sárneczky in the Piszkéstető (Konkoly) survey.

Summary of 2011 observations

As the year is closing, it is time for a summary of the observations conducted in 2011.

Compared to the previous two years, 2011 saw slightly more observing nights, a larger number of  classified objects tracked, but a slightly lower number of positional estimates done:

Number of observing nights: 87
Number of obtained positions:  883
Number of classified objects tracked: 43

For 2009 and 2010, this were respectively: 77, 953, 32 and 78, 1084, 39

In the second diagram above, it can clearly be seen that the spring and late summer were very good (many clear nights), while winter, and especially December, were very poor.

The following tables give a summary of the objects observed (with the "obs" column refering to the number of positions obtained on the object):

(click tables to enlarge)

Just for fun, I plotted all obtained positions on an RA/DEC map:

click diagram to enlarge

New at SatTrackCam in 2011:

2011 saw several new additions to the equipment:

New lenses - new lenses added to the repertoire were the very fine SamYang f1.4/85mm and a Canon EF 2.0/35 mm. The SamYang allowed to target fainter objects in LEO and MEO, going clearly deeper than the EF 2.5/50 mm normally used on brighter objects in LEO. It's FOV is still large enough to capture full trails.
The Canon EF 2.0/35 was added to target fast moving objects in LEO such as objects near decay, Soyuz and Progress, and Keyholes in perigee passes. It has a similar aperture as the 50mm lens but a wider FOV.

Video - Video finally did it's entry at SatTrakCam Leiden in late 2011. The equipment consists of a sensitive WATEC 902H camera that can be equiped with a number of lenses (including the above mentioned Canon EF 2.0/35 and the SamYang 1.4/85). A GPSboxSprite2 time inserter from BlackBoxCamera in the UK is used for the imprint of accurate time signals, and the video feed is recorded on a HDD recorder.

Remote telescope - I have used remote rentable telescopes for some time for my work on asteroids. Starting mid-2011, I am also using them on satellites. The telescopes used are part of the SSON network and consist of a 37-cm and 61-cm Cassegrain located in California and Arizona. These received COSPAR station codes 8231 (Winer obs, MPC code 597) and 8438 (Sierra Stars obs, MPC code G68). I use them to target geostationary satellites visible from the western part of the USA. Two notable targets repeatedly imaged were the new SBIRS Geo 1 (11-019A) and the enigmatic Prowler (90-097E).

Observational highlights:

A few observational and other highlights of 2011:

Nanosail-D - This experimental NASA solar sail put on a fine show during late spring and summer. A study was made of the brightness variation of this object. See various posts here.

The last Space Shuttle missions - The truely last one was not observed, but the last flight of Discovery was imaged several times.

Spectacular IGS 1B flare - IGS 1B is a Japanese spy satellite that failed in 2007, will reenter in 2012-2013 and probably still has some fuel onboard. When I posted on the latter on this blog, this generated some interest, even from the White House.
On  September 2nd, I observed a brilliant flare produced by this satellite, one of the best satellite flares I have ever seen.

UARS and ROSAT - the uncontrolled reentries of these two satellites generated a lot of attention. ROSAT was actually observed twice by me shortly before its reentry, see here and here.

Fobos-Grunt - This Russian probe launched in November should have gone to Mars and the Martian moon Phobos for a sample return mission. A rocket engine failure however got it stuck in Low Earth Orbit, from which it will reenter mid-January. I observed, photographed and even filmed it a number of times.

Andre Kuipers to the ISS - on December 21st, a Soyuz with Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers was launched for a six-month mission to the ISS. Just before the end of the year, I finally could see the ISS with Kuipers on board pass over Leiden and film it (between launch on December 21 and the sighting on December 30th, it had been very bad weather).

Andre's Soyuz 3rd stage decay - Due to untimely cloud cover I did not observe this event myself, but was involved in the identification of it. The spectacular decay in the evening of December 24th was seen by many people in the east, central and southern parts of the Netherlands (where it was clear, unlike in Leiden), as well as from Germany and France.
Ralf Vandeberg (B), Josep Remis (F) and me (NL) independantly were the first to identify the slow fragmenting fireball with the Soyuz 3rd stage used in the December 21 lauch to the ISS, disseminating our identifications on mailing lists, twitter and blogs within half an hour after the fireball apparition. Read more here.