Sunday, 27 January 2008

USA 193: life and death of a spy sat (twice updated 29 Feb)

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UPDATE 29/02/08 (II): New NOTAM warns aircraft for decaying USA 193 debris between now and March 9th. See my post here . UPDATE 29/02/08 (I)...
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Saturday, 26 January 2008

Thin clouds spoiled the sats, but nice Moon this morning

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When I came back from diner with friends around midnight, it was nicely clear. So I set the alarm-clock to see if I could catch the NOSS 3-4...
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Wednesday, 23 January 2008

Of NOSS-es, strays and neighbours

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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 telesc...
Sunday, 13 January 2008

Lacrosse 2 manoeuvre, and bad luck with a stopwatch

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Yesterday was a very clear day, so in twilight I set up the ETX-70 to gather positional data on Lacrosse 2 (91-017A), the NOSS 3-3 (05-004...
Thursday, 10 January 2008

NOSS-es, Lacrosses and ISS

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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-7...
Tuesday, 8 January 2008

More NOSS 3-4

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It shortly cleared around twilight this evening. There were flying clouds and some thin high altitude streaks in the sky, but I managed to g...
Monday, 7 January 2008

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

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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....
Monday, 31 December 2007

Comet 17P/Holmes coma now over 5.5 million km wide: 4 times size of the sun!

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Using my photograph of the 29th, astrometrically measured with Astrorecord, I updated my diagram of the growing size of comet 17P/Holmes...
Sunday, 30 December 2007

Two comets in one picture

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After a week of clouds, the 29th December was a clear day. So in the evening I took the opportunity to bicycle 25 minutes to my dark spot ...
Wednesday, 26 December 2007

USA 193

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A belated report on my December 22 observations. December 22 was a clear, albeit moonlit night. Three objects were captured: Lacrosse 3 (97...
Monday, 17 December 2007

Lacrosse 5r, ISS, Iridium flares and comet 17P/Holmes

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Yesterday was frosty and clear, albeit a bit moisty at the start of the night. A first quarter moon was low in the south. I observed a nice ...
Tuesday, 4 December 2007

Comet 17P/Holmes, 3 December

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Yesterday evening saw very dynamic weather, with the sky changing from open to overcast and back to open again in matters of minutes. During...
Sunday, 2 December 2007

Lacrosse 5 flaring, and another Iridium flare

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A gale today had blown the skies clear by dusk. I observed Lacrosse 5 (05-016A) and saw it flare to mag. 0 at 16:49:08 +/- 5s UTC . I catc...
Saturday, 1 December 2007

Iridium 97 mag. -2 flare

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Short clearings amidst flying clouds allowed me to image this mag. -2 flare of Iridium 97 (02-031A) flaring at 17:25:57 UTC. A few minutes ...
Friday, 30 November 2007

Comet 17P/Holmes getting larger and larger

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Yesterday evening saw a period with clearings, which allowed me to photograph comet 17P/Holmes again. It is still visible by the naked eye, ...
Thursday, 22 November 2007

Comet 17P/Holmes, 21.9 Nov 2007 (2)

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In my previous post , I posted a 29 image stack of comet 17P/Holmes. I took 46 images that night but the software couldn't handle more t...

Comet 17P/Holmes, 21.9 Nov 2007

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Yesterday evening it unexpectedly cleared. A bright waxing gibbous moon was in the sky, but nevertheless I managed to obtain a fine image of...
Monday, 19 November 2007

Satellites again: Lacrosse 5

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Last evening finally allowed me to image a satellite pass again. Conditions were not perfect (hazy skies, later that evening it became compl...
Sunday, 18 November 2007

Comet 17P/Holmes over 2 million km large now

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Another clear evening yesterday, so another photo-shoot on comet 17P/Holmes . It is still an easy naked-eye object even from the center of L...
Friday, 16 November 2007

"Follow that comet!" (updated)

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Yesterday (Nov 15-16) around local midnight it cleared again, and with comet 17P/Holmes in the zenith this meant some nice photographic resu...