Satellites near the Pleiades

Yesterday evening (Saturday 29 January) some satellites seemed to be in love with the Pleiades. In a somewhat hazy sky, I observed Lacrosse 3 (97-064A) cruising near the Pleiades and Hyades in twilight, and half an hour later watched the NOSS 3-4 duo (07-027 A & C) cruise right through the Pleiades.

Below are the resulting images. The top image of the NOSS duo cruising through the Pleiades (movement is from top to bottom, with 07-027A leading) was made using the Canon EF 100/2.8 Macro USM lens: the images of Lacrosse 3 were made using the EF 50/2.5 Macro lens.

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The FIA Radar 1 (10-046A) was imaged as well. Unlike a few nights ago, it did not flare.

The previous night had a better quality sky, so I targetted a few geostationary satellites low above the horizon. Classified geostationary targets imaged were PAN (09-047A), Mentor 2 (98-029A), Mentor 4/USA 202 (09-001A) and the Milstar 5 r/b (02-001B). A number of commercial geostationary satellites were captured as well.

Below image, taken with the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180mm, shows PAN with the nearby commercial geostationary Yamal 202 (03-053A).

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The image below, taken with the EF 2.5/50mm Macro, shows Mentor 2, with the stars of Orion's belt and Orion's nebula M42 at left:

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I also accidentally captured a mag. +2.5 sporadic meteor in one of the images taken with the Carl Zeiss 180 mm (FOV only 5 x 7 degrees!):

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FIA Radar 1 flaring!

Yesterday evening I had a short clear window of opportunity before clouds rolled in. I tried in vain to spot Nanosail-D in deep twilight, and next targetted the FIA Radar 1 (10-046A) again.

Much to my surprise (as I had not see it do that before), it flared twice. At about 17:54:11 UTC (25 Jan) the first brief but bright flare, to mag. -1 occurred. Unfortunately, I was re-aiming the camera at that moment. The satellite flared again however, to mag. +0.5, at 17:54:37.0 UTC, and this time the camera was photographing. Below is the resulting image, and the brightness curve derived from it. It are actually two flares, as a slightly fainter flare at 17:54:35.7 preceeds the main flare.

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Later that evening, during a second brief period of clear sky, I imaged Mentor 2 (98-029A) in Orion.

I also observed on the 20th (The FIA Radar 1 again, and Milstar 5r (02 001B)) and the 22nd (USA 200, 08-010A), during short clear spells.

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.

OT - A Space related Patch?

As some of you know, I not only observe classified satellites - I also collect the uniform patches relating to their launch, mission, and the associated military units.

Recently I obtained the patch pictured above. The seller listed it as "space related" but without more information.

I bought it because I had a hunch it could perhaps be related to NAVSPASUR. This because of the theme of what at first sight appears to be a sailor (but on second sight could be a hamburger flipper as well...) in a southern US desert (Saguaro cactus) looking at the sky, and the "stare" (NAVSPASUR is/was a Radar "fence", i.e. a staring radar, not a tracking radar). I could be completely wrong though.

Googling for "Operation Vigilant Stare" does not yield any result. If anyone has more information regarding this patch, please drop me a note at sattrackcam * wanadoo dot nl (replace the * with an @).

PAN (no longer drifting) on January 2nd 2011

As I discovered on December 8th 2010 (see here), PAN had started to drift away from it's old position at 38.0 E on 2010 December 1st (see here).

Greg Roberts in South Africa and me in the Netherlands followed it drifting eastwards at a rate of about 0.5 degrees/day over mid-December 2010. I dropped out of the chase after December 14th, when a long period of wintery weather with snow started in the Netherlands.

On December 27th, Greg failed to recover it at the position projected by the drift rate and surmissed it had stopped drifting. He confirmed this on December 29th, when he found it in position 49.0 E. It has stayed in that stable position since.

Below diagram shows that it reached that position at 2010 December 24.2:

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Yesterday evening (2 January 2011) I managed to image PAN in it's new 49.0 E position during a short period of clearings:

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I am happy the drift has stopped, as PAN otherwise would have slowly drifted out of my reach. In it's new position, it is lower and more to the northeast in the sky for me: actually it is now quite low at an altitude of only 17.9 degrees (just above tree-top and roof-top level for my locality), 5 degrees lower in altitude and 11.3 degrees more eastward in azimuth than it was in November 2010.

Below diagram shows the change in azimuth and altitude between late November 2010 (right) and now (left).

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Summary of 2010 observations

The year has come to an end, and it is time to present the summary of observations conducted the past year.

2010 was a good year. A total of 1074 positions were determined on a total of 121 objects, on 78 observing nights. A total of 918 positions on 39 objects of these concerned classified objects.

The diagram below shows the breakdown of the number of observing nights and number of determined satellite positions per month over 2010:

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In August and November, I travelled abroad for part of the month and during those periods could not observe. October and the second half of December had very bad weather.

The diagram below shows, just for fun, all gathered positions on an RA/Dec map:

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This was the first year I added geostationary objects to my observing program: these show up well as lines of positions near declination -7 degrees.

Lists of objects observed in 2010 (click lists to enlarge):

Additional observations not included in the special interest table are observations on the flashing pattern of the Iridium 33 wreckage.

OT: (3200) Phaethon, the Geminid meteor shower parent body

This is somewhat Off-Topic as it doesn't concern satellites. It does however concern two other astronomical interests of me: meteors and asteroids.

On December 13th, the annual Geminid meteor shower peaked. Twelve days later, on December 25th, I made this image of the parent body of this meteor shower, asteroid (3200) Phaethon.

The image was made 'remotely' using the 37 cm F14 Cassegrain of Winer Observatory in Sonoita, Nevada (MPC 857). It is a stack of 4 images of 150s exposure each, spaced 20 minutes. It shows the 4 positions taken by the (moving) asteroid for each of these 4 images in this time span. As tracking was on the asteroid motion, the stars are small trails. The asteroid was about magnitude +16.

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For an interactive orbit plot of (3200) Phaethon, click here.

A second NROL-41 (FIA Radar 1) patch

Grey overcast skies and snow do not allow observations currently. South-African observations by Ian Roberts show that PAN was still drifting as off 21 December. Will be interesting to see where the drifting stops (if it continues this way, it will soon drift out of my reach).

In a week or so from now, I will be preparing my overview of 2010 observations. For now, I want to fill the weather-induced lul in observations by showing a recent addition to the patch collection.

A patch for NROL-41, the FIA Radar 1 launch (2010-046A), was shown earlier on this blog here. Recently I however acquired a second patch, which is of much better design:

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Patch designs of the black space program have become a bit generic and bland lately, perhaps as the result of this NRO Director's memo, but the NROL-41 patch above is beautiful. And, with hindsight, offering some clues (to what we now already know from our own observations).

The clue is in the heroine archer. She is aiming for the setting sun (i.e., westwards). I feel this could very well be an allusion to the unusual retrograde (westward) orbit of the FIA 1 Radar.

The purple 'vermicelli' pattern in the nighttime earth actually includes a few character combinations, i.e. acronyms, of units and organizations connected to the launch. Recognizable are amongst others 'NRO', and what appears to be '4 SLS' and 'LRS' or 'LRSW'.

It would be interesting to know what the three white stars in the patch rim signify.

When did PAN start to drift?

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Answer: on December 1st. Which tallies with it still being at her old position at 38.0 deg E on November 28.

A satellite in the "fish mouth" of Orion's nebula, and nine geosats in one image

Sunday evening, I shot a number of images of the geostationary belt in Orion using the Carl Zeiss Jena 2.8/180 mm lens. This yielded amongst others a very pretty picture of the Milstar 6 r/b (03-013B), snapped when it was located spot on in the dark "fish mouth" area of M42, the Orion nebula:

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The image below shows a full image shot, measuring 6.8 x 5 degrees. It shows as much as 9 geostationary satellites (3 classified and 6 commercial) in the same image. Numbered boxes refer to the detail images below the main image. Note how many of them (boxes 3 to 6) line up along declination -7.3 degrees, in a line from bottom left to upper right.

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Mystery satellite "UNKNOWN 101208" is PAN!

Those of you following this observing blog and the Satobs list, will be aware of the observations of the past week of what appeared to be an unknown geostationary satellite.

It was first observed on December 8th by me, and next by Greg Roberts as well (see here for the discovery, as well as here, and here for the follow-up).

It was first thought to be perhaps DSCS 3-11, but that turned out to be incorrect. So it was a bit of a mystery, as no recent launch was a candidate either. And geosats just don't "materialize" in the sky. Obviously, this was an older geosat being relocated: but which one?!

The mystery has now been solved, by Greg Roberts. The satellite is PAN (2009-047A), relocating to a position more to the east.

Greg imaged the old position of PAN (close to Paksat 1) on the 12th, but couldn't detect it. So he made the obvious conclusion: PAN was gone and identical to the eastwards drifting satellite we called "Unknown 101208" since December 8th.

I can actually confirm Greg's result of the 12th: I imaged the "old" position as well that same evening and like Greg find no trace of PAN, only Paksat 1 is present.

So how about my "observation" of PAN near the "old" position on December 8th, the same evening that I first spotted "Unknown 101208"?!?

It is very embarasing, but I turn out te have been fooled by an image artefact! With hindsight, I should have been suspicious: the little dot I thought was PAN was quite faint, and visible on only one out of 2 images. This unlike my November 28th observations, when the true PAN clearly showed up in its "old" position on multiple images.

Below image shows the image artefact that fooled me on the 8th (the insets show details of this image, and a second image taken 20 seconds later on the same evening which only shows Paksat 1 - which with hindsight should have warned me).

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Here is another image, showing PAN and Paksat 1 on November 28, and Paksat 1 with PAN no longer present on December 12th.

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With the current drift rate of just under 0.5 deg/day, PAN probably started to relocate on or around December 1st.

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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Update on the UNID geostationary: Greg observed it too!

On the evening of December 8, while imageing PAN, I captured an unknown object, apparently in a geostationary orbit, close to the commercial geostationary objects Turksat 2A and Turksat 3A. See my earlier report and pictures here.

Since then, I have been completely clouded out. However, Greg Roberts in South Africa had clear skies yesterday, and managed to recover the object. It has moved closer to the Turksat duo.

Greg is in some doubt whether this really is the "lost" SCS 3-11 (2000-001A ) as he feels it is too bright.

To be continued!!!!!

Again Terra SAR-X and TanDEM-X, and a rich batch of

Yesterday evening was a very dynamic evening, where conditions changed from clear to clouded to clear in matters of minutes.

Besides the unexpected recovery of a lost classified geostationary, I also observed a number of other geostationary satellites, and another fine flare of the close duo TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X (for an earlier observation, see here). They flared to mag. -1 at about 17:18:20 UTC, yielding the image below:

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Movement is from left to right, with TerraSAR-X leading. The distance between the two objects was 3' (arcminutes).

Among the geostationary satellites imaged, were the classified objects PAN (2009-097A) and the Mentor's USA 202 (Mentor 4, 2009-001A) and Mentor 2 (98-029A). In addition, the commercial geosats Express AM-1 (2004-043A), Hellas-sat 2 (2003-020A), Paksat-1 (96-006A, close to PAN) and Thuraya 2 (2003-026A, close to USA 202). This in addition to the recovery of DSCS 3-11 (2000-001A) and the closeby commercial geosats Turksat 2A (2001_002A) and Turksat 3A (2008-030B) .

Below two images show the couple Mentor 4 (USA 202) and Thuraya 2 imaged with the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180mm; and Mentor 2 imaged with the Canon EF 2.5/50 Macro.

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[UPDATED] An unidentified Geostationary or GTO object

UPDATE 9/12/2010:
Ted Molczan has identified the object as being likely DSCS 3-11 (00001A / 26052), last seen 178 days ago at another position.

UPDATE 14 Dec 2010: the object is PAN (09-047A), see here for the story of how this identification unfolded. PAN started to drift on Dec 1st.
---

This evening (December 8), while imaging PAN (09-047A) in a race against the clock with incoming clouds, I inadvertently imaged a UNID (unidentified object).

The object showed up in the images taken with the 2.8/180mm Carl Zeiss Sonnar. It is located about 0.5 degrees West of the commercial geostationary duo Turksat 2A and Turksat 3A. So far, I cannot find a match for it with any known (classified or unclassified) object. Below are the two images, taken 20 seconds apart:

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It is either a geostationary object, or an object in Gestationary Transfer Orbit close to its apogee.

It got clouded shortly after this image series, so after discovering the object on the imagery I had no opportunity to go out and make additional images for more positions.

The two positions gathered are (in IOD format):

99999 10 342A 4353 G 20101208210402300 17 75 0513341-072580 56
99999 10 342A 4353 G 20101208210422300 17 75 0513542-072590 56

PAN and other geostationary satellites in a frosty winter sky

Last Sunday evening, the pass of the Terra SAR X and Tandem X close duo posted earlier here and a pass of Lacrosse 4 shortly after that, were not the only observations I made. Somewhat later that night, I targetted several geostationary satellites, using both the Canon EF 2.5/50 mm Macro lens and the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180 mm lens (the latter for the first time on geostationary objects).

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The image above, taken with the EF 2.5/50mm lens, shows two geostationary objects close to the Orion nebula.

One is the classified object USA 202/Mentor 4 (2009-001A), a big SIGINT geostationary satellite with a brightness of about mag. +8. It has featured on this observing blog earlier. The other one, Galaxy 8 (1997-078A), is a commercial communications satellite and was captured serendipitously in the same image while it was brightly but briefly flashing. It is not visible in an image taken 30 seconds later (and only faintly visible in an image taken 3.5 minutes earlier).

I also imaged the mysterious classified geostationary PAN (2009-047A) for the first time, using the new Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180 mm lens. Below image shows it together with the nearby commercial geostationary satellites Paksat 1 (1996-006A) and Hellas-sat 2 (2003-020A).

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PAN is a very mysterious object, the mysteries surrounding the 2009 launch being discussed at length by Dwayne Day in his Space Review article here. The mystery was (and is), that no Agency (neither NRO, USAF, US Navy nor CIA) claimed responsibility for the launch. Owner and role are hence unknown. There was much speculation about the possible role of the spacecraft, and the meaning of the acronym PAN. The latter got at least one "solution" when the launch patch (below) appeared, suggesting PAN stood for "Palladium At Night". Whatever that may mean.



The same images that contained PAN, Paksat and Hellas-sat 2 also contained the very faint trail of a Breeze-M tank (2009-050C) and two more geostationary satellites: Eutelsat W4 and Eutelsat W7 (2000-028A and 2009-065A). This all in an image only a few degrees wide!

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Last but not least, the classified geostationary communicatiosn satellite Milstar 5 (2002-001A) was imaged. In the same image(s), two other, commercial geostationary satellites were visible: Galaxy 11 (1999-071A) and Inmarsat 4-F2 (2005-044A). A rich haul of geostationary objects, obtained at mildly frosty temperatures of -2.5 C!

Terra SAR X and Tandem X flying in formation (and flaring!)

Over the past months, the two German remote sensing research satellites Tandem X and Terra SAR X (2010-030A and 2007-026A) operated by the German agency DLR have been manoeuvred to form a very tight formation, cruising up together with a distance of no more than a few hundred meters.

This provides a very nice sight for observers, especially since both satellites also produce slow, naked eye flares when the sun-satellite-observer angle is favourable.

Yesterday evening near the end of twilight, I had a favourable pass, with the duo cruising through the zenith at an altitude of around 515 km. They flared while they did this, to mag. +1, at about 17:01:15 UTC (28 Nov), give or take a few seconds. My camera opened just a few seconds after the flare peak, and captured the pair while slowly fading in this 10 second image:

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Movement is from bottom right to upper left. I measure a distance of 70 arcseconds (or just over 1 arcminute) between the two objects on this image, corresponding at face value to about 175 meter distance. But because there is a small altitude difference between the two objects as well, the true separation between the two is a bit more than this value. Terra SAR X (2007-026A) is the slightly leading and slightly brighter object in the formation.

Senegalese skies

I spent the first half of this month in Africa, in Senegal, where I took part in the 2010 PANAF/Safa conference (PANAF = Pan-African Archaeology Conference) in Dakar. After the conference my girlfriend, two friends/colleagues and me added a few days of tourism through the country.

During the conference field excursion to the Saloum delta, and later during our private trip to the Lompoul sand dunes, I took a few shots of the Senegalese night sky. I didn't have my regular astrophoto lenses with me, so used my Tamron 2.8/17-50 mm zoom (not an ideal choice for astrophotography) at 17mm. The camera was fixed on a tripod, no guiding, exposure times ranged between 10 and 20 seconds, ISO 1600.

Below are some of the resulting pictures, plus a photograph of me taken at a megalithic site during the conference field excursion.

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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).

2003 dreams and 2010 facts about the Future Imagery Architecture (FIA) satellites

This article published in 2003 in the Army Space Journal contains the following quote on page 5 (lower part first column), regarding the Future Imagery Architecture (FIA) satellites:

"The satellites will also be farther out in Space and much harder to detect"

Seven years later, what has come true of this? Two FIA satellites have been launched: one (USA 193) failed spectacularly. The second, the FIA Radar 1/USA 215 (10-046A) was launched a month ago as NROL-41.

It is indeed farther away than the NRO's previous radar reconnaissance satellites, the Lacrosses. The Lacrosses move in orbits with altitudes of 640 km (Lacrosse 2) to 720 km (Lacrosse 5). The FIA Radar 1 moves in an orbit at 1100 km, about 1.6 times as high as the Lacrosses.

But the "harder to detect" has not come true, at least not with the FIA Radar 1. With a brightness reaching magnitude +3.5 on a favourable pass, it can be easily seen by the naked eye, even from the city center of Leiden (which has a population of about 140 000). It shows up brightly on images made with a simple off-the-shelf DSLR and 50 mm lens (see the image near the end of my previous post). When courtyard amateur astronomy nabs it that easy, it is hardly "hard to detect".