Movie: Why the Russian Super Meteor was not related to asteroid 2012 DA14 - explained with the help of an orange

Dutch note: een Nederlandstalige versie van deze video is eerder hier gepost.



Added Note: the reality is slightly more complex than I present it in the video, as objects that graze just past the earth limb are slightly deflected by earth gravitation and can end up on (low) northern latitudes. Latitude 55 N is out of the question though, and as this added detail might make the story too complex I decided to leave it out.

Filmpje: waarom de supermeteoor boven Rusland niets te maken heeft met planetoide 2012 DA14 - uitgelegd met behulp van een sinaasappel

Note to English readers: an English version of the Dutch language video below is posted in a separate post here.




Toegevoegde noot: Het is in werkelijkheid iéts complexer dan ik hier doe voorkomen, omdat een langs de rand van de aarde scherend object door de aardse zwaartekracht iets wordt afgebogen en er zo dus wel fragmenten op (lage) noordelijke breedtegraden terecht kunnen komen. Maar 55 Noord is echt buiten de mogelijkheid, en ik heb dit er daarom maar uit gelaten omdat het anders misschien te complex werd.

On national television about 2012 DA14 and the Russian super meteor

Yesterday was a crazy day, that started as soon as I woke up, opened my e-mail and saw the messages about the Russian super meteor event. Next, my telephone was red-hot from phone calls, and my e-mail and twitter flowed over from private messages by persons and news media seeking information.

I got two TV crews visiting me, plus a radio reporter, and I turned down a couple of other media requests.

At 22:00 (10 pm) Dutch time I was Live in the broadcast of 'Nieuwsuur', a prominent news program on Dutch national television channel Nederland 2. Through a satellite connection, I was interviewed by the news anchors in the studio, while I was standing next to my telescope in my courtyard. The topics were both the Russian event and the 2012 DA14 asteroid fly-by.

 TV van in the street

screenshots from the live Nieuwsuur broadcast

The video (in Dutch) can be seen here. It starts directly with my item.

I was also interviewed by a regional TV and radio station, TV West. The video of that TV appearance (again in Dutch of course) can be viewed here [link fixed: it initially erroneously linked to the Nieuwsuur item]: my item starts at 3:40 in the video.

TV West filming my explanation

Screenshots from the TV West broadcast

Radio reporter interviewing me

[updated] HUGE fireball over Russia this morning! Not 2012 DA14 related.

A HUGE fireball has appeared over Chelyabinsk, Russia, this morning. And with HUGE I mean: HUGE. Apparent brightness rivalling the sun, and very strong sonic booms leading to glass damage and people being wounded by flying glass. This must have been a seizable object entering the atmosphere.

Phil Plait, the "Bad Astronomer" has very good coverage including some amazing videos here, so I will refer to him for imagery and the general story (apart from two I include below: one showing the meteor, the other one the arrival of the shock wave).





Below, I will briefly explain why this fireball cannot have been a fragment of 2012 DA14, the ~50 meter wide asteroid that will pass very close to earth coming evening (Feb 15, 2013).

First of all (and Phil Plait points this out as well), the fireball in Russia came from the wrong direction. Several of the videos show it appearing in the east near the rising sun, coming from a N-NE direction. That is the wrong direction: fragments of 2012 DA14 are on a south-north trajectory.

What is even more important: fragments of 2012 DA14 could never enter the atmosphere as far north as latitude 55 N (Chelyabinsk). Fragments in orbits similar to that of the asteroid, have a theoretical geocentric radiant at declination -81 degrees, i.e. almost at the southern celestial pole. They hence approach earth from due south. This means that the northern hemisphere is out of reach of these fragments: the northern hemisphere represents (as seen from these approaching fragments) the "far side" of the earth.

[video added 18/02/2013]


[added 18/02/2013] In the above video I explain this more visually, with the help of an orange. In reality, it is slightly more complicated than I present it in the video, as objects grazing the earth's limb are actually slightly attracted by earths gravity and can end up a little bit over the line between "front" and "far" side of the earth. Ending up at latitude 55 N is nevertheless out of the question.

The funny thing is that the latitude of Chelyabinsk and the approach direction of 2012 DA14 (and fragments in a swarm around it) are well established facts, even if the trajectory of the Russian fireball is less so at the moment. So it is quite nice that from the encounter geometry with the 2012 DA14 orbit and the latitude of the Russian meteor alone, we can actualy already exclude a connection between the two with a quite strong certainty.

Fragments in 2012 DA14-like orbits and the Russian fireball itself are also too fast to be temporarily captured in earth-orbit, so that is no explanation either.

This fireball was not man-made space junk either. Besides coming from an unlikely direction, it is too fast and much too bright for that.

These are amazing times: the reentry of a Russian rocket stage seen from NW Europe on the evening of the 13th, then this hughe meteoric fireball over Russia this morning, and a close pass of asteroid 2012 DA14 tonight. Wow!

Fireball over NW Europe of the evening of 13 February 2013: Re-entry of a Soyuz r/b

Reports are pouring in of a very long duration, bright fireball near 22:15 CET (21:15 GMT) seen from Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Reports indicate 30-40 seconds visibility, and an "explosion" halfway, and some reports indicate sonic booms.

This fireball was with a high degree of certainty the re-entry of a Russian Soyuz 3rd stage, #39083 (2013-007B), the 3rd stage from the Soyuz that launched the Progress cargoship Progress-M 18M towards the ISS on February 11th.

USSTRATCOM issued a TIP message indicating decay at 21:15 +/- 1 m UTC near 49N, 13 E.

Below is a quick map (made using Orbitron) of the trajectory and approximate position of the re-entry.

click map to enlarge

Time, general description and reentry data all fit quite well.

OT - a new telescope and imaging the moon

Since 18 November I have done little in terms of satellite observing, for reasons outlined below. Therefore, a post that is slightly OT - but still astronomical in topic.

Generally bad weather over the past two months - lots of clouds, and even snow mid January - is one primary reason for my inactivity on the satellite observing front. Another is that mid-winter isn't the best period of the year at 52 N due to the "winter blackout" of many objects in LEO. Third, I am occupied these months by a few other things, including the "Super Secret Project" which I obviously can't talk about yet (but is very exciting).

The generally bad weather over December and January meant that I could not yet fully use my new toy. Near the start of December, I obtained myself a new telescope, partly with the proceeds of the Van der Bilt Prize. The telescope is a Celestron C6 Schmidt-Cassegrain (15 cm f=1500) on an SGT Advanced Goto equatorial mount. Here is me showing it off:

For quite a while I wanted a slightly bigger and optically better telescope than the simple Meade ETX-70 and small and very old 4.5" Newton I already had, yet found it just too expensive. The extra money from the Van der Bilt Prize meant it became just feasible for me to finally buy something better.

Since I have no option for a permanent setup and live small, it could not be a very large and heavy setup, so I choose this 6" Schmidt-Cassegrain (the mount is heavier than I expected though). Even though I have not been able to use it extensively yet, I so far like it very much!

Twice in January I could test it out on the moon. Here are some images shot on January 22nd. First, an old-fashioned single shot photograph of the moon disc (C6 prime focus with F6.3 flattener/reducer, and Canon EOS 60D, 1/160s at ISO 200). Seeing was quite mediocre, the air was not quite steady (the image was "wavy" as if reflected on the surface of water):

click image to enlarge

I also used the HD movie capabilities of my Canon EOS 60D to shoot a few short movies, and then stack frames from these movies using Registax. This results in a dramatic increase in detail. The images below are each the result of stacking 200 movie frames, selected out of movie sequences of ~550 frames each, and are my first ever experiments with Registax (which is quite complex to use for a novice):

click images to enlarge

Southern highlands: Clavius and Tycho

Northern part of Mare Imbrium with Sinus Iridium,

Plato and Vallis Alpes

Mare Humorum, Mare Nubium, with Gassendi

and Bullialdus

One of the intended primary goals for this telescope will be to observe asteroid occultations, with the WATEC 902H video camera plus GPS time inserter attached to it.Satellites are not the primary goal of this new instrument.

Mapping a year of space debris re-entries

The year 2012 saw as many as 72 uncontrolled re-entries of larger pieces of space debris.

Just for fun, I mapped the data for those 52 re-entries where the time of the re-entry is known to 15 minutes or better. The latter means that the general area over which the re-entry occurred can be established with some confidence.

click maps to enlarge

As can be seen from the kernel density map, Africa got the brunt of the re-entries last year. Common wisdom has it that most re-entries occur over the Pacific. That is true for controlled re-entries, but for uncontrolled re-entries that is not born out by the map above. There is a "but" in this all however: the aparent emptiness of the Pacific is, likely, an artifact of a lack of tracking sensors there. Re-entries over this part of the world will have larger uncertainties in their time of decay estimates, and hence they do not show up on this map.

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.

The flashing behaviour of North Korea's tumbling Kwangmyongsong 3-2 satellite

North Korea's first satellite Kwangmyongsong 3-2 (KMS 3-2) cannot be seen from the northern hemisphere at the moment (and hence cannot be observed by me currently). On the southern hemisphere, Greg Roberts (CoSatTrak) in South Africa is however successfully tracking the satellite.

He had a particular good pass on December 20th and obtained a very nice video record, tracking on the satellite with a motorized mount (note: movie has a period of black screen between opening title and start of the video record):

Greg Robert's video from S-Africa

(posted with permission)

The satellite is the object near the center of the screen, flashing about each 8.5 seconds with periods of invisibility inbetween. The moving streaks are stars (the mount is tracking the satellite as it moved along the sky): the other stationary dots in the image are hot pixels on the sensor of the video camera.

The video allows for an analysis of the flashing behaviour of the satellite. I used LiMovie to measure the satellites' brightness on the frames, resulting in the following lightcurve:

click diagram to enlarge

Visible is a clear ~8.45s periodicity with flashes of a specular character (suggesting a flat reflective surface). I have marked this with red triangles 8.45 seconds apart. In between the main flashes, a pattern of smaller secondary flashes can be discerned in a semi 8.45 second peridicity too (green triangles). They are not exactly positioned halfway between major flashes.

Assuming that each major flash is a flash caused by one of the sides of the KMS 3-2 cube-shaped body, then it completes a tumble once every ~33.8 seconds. Assuming that the less clear secondary flashes are due to a side of the cube as well, the tumbling periodicity would be half of that, i.e. 16.9 seconds.

Greg recorded the UNHA-3 r/b from the launch too. That one too is tumbling:

Greg Robert's video from S-Africa

(posted with permission)

Again, I used LiMovie to extract brightness information from each video frame. That was less successful with this video, because Greg's mount had difficulty keeping up with the fast-moving r/b for much of the record. A considerable part of the video could not be used for analysis, and I had to chop up the analysis in little non-continuous chunks:

click diagram to enlarge

What can be seen, is a flashing behaviour that starts slow and gentle and is increasing in rapidity near the end of the analysis, this being an effect of changing viewing angle.

Contrary to what some alarmist (sometimes almost hysterical) media reports have suggested, the tumbling of KMS 3-2 is by no means dangerous. David Wright over at All Things Nuclear has a very good debunking story about this all, pointing out the many misconceptions rampant in the reporting.

[UPDATED] A post-analysis of the N-Korean launch window, and N-Korean Spooks on my weblog?

On December 12, North Korea surprised the Western world by successfully bringing its first independently confirmed satellite into orbit: Kwangmyongsong 3-2, a reportedly 100 kg cubesat. For images of the satellite and an analysis of its likely components, see here. The satellite was launched with an UNHA 3 rocket from Sohae Launch Centre in Cholsan.

The successful launch came as a surprise for two reasons. First, all previous North Korean satellite launch attempts abysmally failed (even if N-Korea claimed they were a success).

Second, North Korea had indicated days before the launch that the launch was to be postponed to late December, for technical reasons. This appears to have been a deliberate disinformation ploy by N-Korea. According to South Korean press sources, it appears they also tried to play a ruse on the Americans, by pretending to dismantle the rocket when US imaging satellites were overhead, and continuing launch preparations when they were not.




Analysing the time of launch and US satellite coverage of the launch site

Well then: did the North Koreans indeed try to evade US (and Japanese) satellite surveillance?

First, they would not have been able to evade detection of the launch itself by US infra-red early warning satellites such as the DSP satellites and SBIRS in geostationary and HEO orbit. Coverage by these satellites is continuous.

But that was probably not N-Korea's goal anyway. Their goal reportedly was to try to convince analysts of imagery from US imaging satellites (optical and radar) that the rocket was not yet complete at the launch site, and not yet ready to launch for a while. The aim was apparently to throw off US predictions about the "when" of the launch until the very moment of launch itself.

Their concern hence was with US and Japanese optical and radar imaging satellites such as the KH-12 Keyholes, Lacrosses, FIA and IGS. These imaging satellites move in LEO, and coverage is not continuous- not yet at least.

Indeed, the timing of the North Korean launch (00:49 UTC on December 12) is interesting. It coincides with the end of a one hour long interval with no coverage of the launch site by US or Japanese Low Earth Orbit imaging satellites.

By contrast, in the hours prior to and after this one-hour gap in coverage, such periods of non-coverage were much shorter (typically 10-15 minutes at best), as can be seen in the coverage analysis images below and the movie near the top of this post (movie, images and analysis made using JSatTrak).

click image to enlarge

As can be seen from the coverage analysis, this hour long interval between 23:45-00:45 UT really stands out compared to the hours before and after. The N-Koreans launched right at the end of this interval at 00:49 UT, just when the launch site was coming into reach of the FIA Radar 2.

I feel the launch right at the end of this interval is no coincidence: they picked a moment where prior to launch they would have a substantial gap in US satellite surveillance available to complete their launch preparations. The one-hour long interval seems to have provided the North Koreans enough time to remount whatever they dismounted or camouflaged as a ruse, and launch.

(some remarks on the analysis and movie above: for a few of the satellites shown, positions are not 100% certain. For example, the Keyhole USA 186 hasn't been observed for a while because of the midwinter blackout. Satellites included in the analysis are the Japanese IGS, the US Keyholes, Lacrosses and FIA [edit: plus SPOT, Worldview and Quickbird commercial imaging satellites]).

Update 17/12 12:45 UT: 
I initially forgot to include the GeoEye Worldview and Quickbird commercial imaging satellites in the analysis. These commercial sats are frequently hired by the US government for selected imaging and used by independent analysts as well.

I have now added these satellites to the analysis, and the one-hour gap coverage between 11 Dec 23:45 and 12 Dec 00:45 UT keeps standing:

click image to enlarge

Update 17/12 16:00 UT:
Also added the French SPOT satellites to the analysis. Again, the 1-hour coverage gap between 11 Dec 23:45 and 12 dec 00:45 UT keeps standing.

Korean Spooks on my weblog?

There is a bizarre twist to this all that involves this weblog. In the late morning of December 8th, four days before the launch, an IP solving to North Korea visited this weblog. It entered through web-searches that included the keywords 'tle', 'KH-12' and 'Lacrosse 5'. A screenshot of the web statistics is below:

click image to enlarge

North Koreans with access to international websites are about as rare as, well, North Korean unicorns. Only a very select handful of North Koreans -mostly direct family members of Kim Jong Un- are allowed access to the internet.

Disclaimer: I was (and am) slightly suspicious. IP's can be spoofed, and two things caught my eye. One is the OS listed, Windows Xp. N-Korea is supposed to have its own OS, 'Red Star'. But then, maybe they only use this for their own, completely internal version of the internet. Or maybe western webstatistics providers cannot properly recognize it and list it as Xp (plus it could be a knock-off of Xp, even).

Second initially suspicious detail: the 10:05 and 10:07 visits have the word "satelliet", not "satellite" in the search string. That raised some suspicion as "satelliet" is the Dutch word for "satellite". However: that could also be a simple typo (switching the last two characters - a very common kind of typo) instead of a Dutchman typing.

Assuming that this was a real N-Korean visit, then the visit is highly interesting with reference to the apparent ruse played on US satellite surveillance of N-Korea as analysed above.

For here we apparently have a North Korean, a country where the average Kim is not allowed access to the internet, looking for orbital information on US surveillance satellites on my weblog!

This moreover was someone with at least some knowledge of satellites - again, not your average North Korean Kim, but suggestive of someone from the NK space program or intelligence program. The specific keywords 'tle' (two-line elements, i.e. a set of satellite orbital elements) and 'Lacrosse 5' (a US radar imaging satellite) and 'KH-12' (US Keyhole-12/Advanced Crystal optical imaging satellites, i.e. the satellites USA 129, USA 161, USA 186 and USA 224) bear this out.

Yet this person wasn't perhaps entirely informed. He or she searched for orbital information on those US optical and radar imaging satellites that form the backbone of US space-based surveillance, but notably missing from the search queries is the most recent addition to the US radar surveillance constellation, the two FIA Radar satellites. Also missing are Japan's IGS satellites. But, maybe, after checking for the KH-12 and Lacrosse 5 they realized they should not be on my blog for this information - they should be at Mike's website for that.

Video of my lecture (in Dutch) on Hunting for Asteroids and the Van der Bilt Prize ceremony, 10 November 2012

As related earlier on this blog, I was much honoured to receive the Dr J. Van der Bilt Prize of the Royal Dutch Astronomy and Meteorology Association (KNVWS) on November 10, 2012.

The post linked above already provides a narrative of that day and a couple of photographs. This current post is to point the interested reader to video of the ceremony (in Dutch), shot by my GF:



As is customary, I did a 1-hour lecture on (part of) the activities which earned me this prestigious prize. In my case, the lecture focussed on my asteroid search activities.

Video of that is below, in three parts of approximately 20 minutes each. The lecture is in Dutch. Ignore the camera repositioning near the start of part I, it becomes stable after a few minutes (when also my lecture gathers more steam):

Part I (20 minutes):

Part II (20 minutes):

Part III (15 minutes):

UNID geosat Unknown 121118 is probably the classified SIGINT Mercury 1 (94-054A)

As I reported on this blog earlier, I discovered an unidentified object in an 8.4 degree inclined geosynchronous orbit in the evening of November 18 (see images below). It was given the designation "Unknown 121118" and also observed by Greg Roberts from South Africa the next evening, showing it to be truely geosynchronous at longitude 48 E.

click images to enlarge

I initially thought it would probably be a commercial satellite that had been recently relocated. However, as USSTRATCOM has still not identified the object, we are beginning to suspect it is a classified object, and we have some idea of its identity.

Ted Molczan pointed out that the 8.44 degree inclination is similar to that of Mercury 1 (94-054A). The brightness of the object is similar too. Mercury 1 was last located over the western Atlantic near 43 W, and had not been observed for over two months. Peter Wakelin imaged its former position on November 21 and could not find it. So there is a good chance it has been moved, and is my Unknown 121118, now located at 48 E.

click map to enlarge

The Mercury (also known as 'Advanced Vortex' ) geostationary satellites are classified US military SIGINT ('eavesdropping') satellites. Two were launched during the 1990-ies: the launch of a third one failed when the rocket booster malfunctioned, destroying the satellite. Mercury 1 (94-054A) launched on 27 August 1994 was the first. Given that it now appears to have been repositioned and is station-keeping at 48 E, is appears to be still operational, 18 years after it was launched.

Why it has been repositioned over 48 E, somewhere within the last two months (and probably near the more recent part of that timespan) is a matter of speculation. Maybe it is monitoring communications on the Syria-Turkey border; maybe it is listening in on Iran; or maybe it is monitoring communications of Somalian pirates near the Horn of Africa.

In June this year I imaged Mercury 1's sister ship Mercury 2 (see here), which was of a similar brightness as 'Unknown 121118'. That object at that time seemed headed for a graveyard orbit and hasn't been observed for a while. It has a slightly larger orbital inclination than Mercury 1 / Unknown 121118.

PAN, other Geostationary satellites, and another UNID (this time Greg's)

As reported earlier I had a prolific observing session on Geostationary satellites in the evening of November 18th, discovering amongst others an unidentified geostationary object now temporarily designated Unknown 121118 (see here and follow-up here with imagery by Greg from S-Africa: an more on it near the end of the current post).

Below is some more imagery showing various classified and unclassified objects. All images were made using a Canon EOS 60D with a SamYang 1.4/85mm lens at ISO 1000.


Unknown 20121117 (Greg's UNID)

The November 18th imagery includes imagery of a second unidentified object, Unknown 121117 discovered by Greg Roberts (CoSaTrak) from South Africa a day earlier on the 17th (a third initially reported  'unid 'by Greg turned out to be identifiable as a known object, a Chinese CZ-3C r/b). So Greg recovered my Nov 18th UNID on the 19th, and I recovered Greg's Nov 17 UNID on the 18th: nice teamwork!

The image below shows it together with a number of nearby commercial geosats (the veil-like lighter streaks in the image are cirrus clouds, who had begone to invade an initially clear sky):

click image to enlarge

Below is one of Greg's images of the object from 17 November taken from S-Africa: in my image above taken a day later the object has drifted quite a distance more to the West.

(image courtesy Greg Roberts, CoSatTrak S-Africa)

Unknown 121117 is a truely uncatalogued object. There is nevertheless some idea about the identity of this satellite, but I am currently not allowed to provide more information.



PAN

PAN (09-047A) and the nearby commercial geosat Paksat 1R visible in Greg's Nov 17th image are visible on my Nov 18th imagery as well. The image below basically fits to the upper image above (see the Eutelsat pair visible in both images), giving you a sense how Greg's Unknown 2012117 has moved in a day time:

click image to enlarge

I have written about PAN on this blog several times before: it is an enigmatic classified satellite that frequently relocates.


Mentor 4, Thuraya 2 and the Mentor 1r

Among the other objects imaged were the SIGINT Mentor 4 (and the nearby commercial satellite Thuraya 2), and a r/b from the Mentor 1 launch, Mentor 1r.

Mentors (the biggest geostationary satellites in existence and the biggest man-made objects in space with exception of the ISS) are relatively bright objects (typically mag. +8):

click image to enlarge

I already posted imagery of another Mentor, Mentor 5, as well as the SIGINT Vortex 6 in an earlier post.


More on my UNID, Unknown 121118

This object in an 8.5 degree inclined geosynchronous orbit (see here and here for earlier coverage) remains 'unidentified' (i.e., is not present in public orbital catalogues such as USSTRATCOM's): we are however starting to believe it could be a classified object that has recently been moved to this location from somewhere else. It is currently positioned over 48.3 E and appears stable in longitude:

click map to enlarge

Greg's Nov 19th imagery of my geostationary UNID (UNK121118)

click image to enlarge (image courtesy Greg Roberts)

The imagery above is posted with kind permission of Greg Roberts (CoSaTrak, South Africa). It depicts the same geosynchronous UNID that I imaged from the Netherlands on the 18th, in an image Greg shot from South Africa on the 19th.

This object does not match with anything in USSTRATCOM's current satellite catalogue, or in our classified satellite catalogue. It probably is a commercial satellite that very recently has been relocated to this spot: if so, USSTRATCOM seems not yet aware of it.We have not been able yet to identify which satellite it could be.

For my November 18 discovery imagery of this object, click here.

As the object moves in an orbit with an inclination of 8.1 degrees, it makes a small daily "up and down wobble" perpendicular to the celestial equator (many geosynchronous objects do that). This is the reason it is showing a small trail in this 40-second exposure.

(the nearby object marked EUTE 48A in the imagery is the commercial geostationary satellite Eutelsat 48A)

An Unidentified geostationary object

Yesterday evening was (initially) very clear. I took the opportunity to image the USA 144 decoy (1999-028C)  in the early evening, and then do a survey of the eastern geostationary belt between 23h and 24h LT.

The USA 144 decoy passed close to the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and was caught together with this galaxy and a Breeze-M tank (2011-021C, from the Telstar 14R launch):

click image to enlarge

The session on geostationary satellites later in the evening was ended by incoming cirrus, but not before a fair number of objects was imaged.


A UNID geosat in Orion

Among them was a bright unidentified object in an 8-degree inclined (near-) geostationary orbit captured in several images.

The images below (overview, and then details) show it in Orion together with the Orion nebula, a Chinese r/b (Beidou CZ-3C r/b, 2010-024B), and the classified SIGINT objects Mentor 5 (USA 237, 2012-034A) and Vortex 6 (1989-035A).

click images to enlarge

While the object is unidentified at the moment, it probably is a commercial geostationary satellite that is being moved to a new slot or to a graveyard orbit: but with the tracking network of USSTRATCOM not having noted this yet.

For the moment, the object has been designated as Unknown 121118. It moves in this very approximate orbit (calculated by Mike McCants):

Unknown 121118
1 99991U 12009B   12323.84298080 0.00000000  00000-0  00000-0 0    02
2 99991   8.1179  50.0556 0005003 274.8696  85.1304  1.00270000    07

Initially, I thought it might be the same "unid" reported by Greg in the same general area the day before, but it turns out to be another object. Greg's "unid" was identified by Mike as 2010-024B, a Beidou CZ-3 r/b, actually the same object that can be seen close to USA 237 in the images above.

UPDATE 19-11-2012, 20:20 UT: Greg Roberts just mailed me that he recovered the UNID from South Africa at virtually the same position, so it is geostationary. See follow-up post here.

Belated: imaging ATV-3 late September

click images to enlarge

I am very much belated in posting the images above: they show ATV-3 imaged by me in morning twilight of 30 September 2012. The lower of the two images was my entry to ESA's ATV photo contest and won 3rd place (earning me a nice ATV t-shirt: thank you ESA!).

This was the only morning between undocking and reentry that was not clouded (well: as you can see in the images, it wasn't exactly clear either).

The observing session in question was the last one where I was accompanied by our late cat Pippi, who died a month later.

Is it a bird, or a possible UNID satellite?

Yesterday, asteroid (2397) Lappajarvi would occult the mag. +7.8 star HIP 19971 in Taurus. I was some 106 km outside of the predicted occultation zone but inside the 1-sigma uncertainty zone, so I covered the event using my WATEC 902H video camera and SamYang 1.4/85mm lens (no occultation was seen, as expected).

However: while setting up the system and checking it out with an aim on the Pleiades, I filmed either a bird or a potential UNID satellite:

Integrated still image (click to enlarge):

I cannot 100% exclude that it is a bird, also because objects in LEO mostly would have been in shadow already at this time of the evening and sky direction (relatively low east). The resulting orbit is moreover retrograde (inclination about 127 degrees), which is very rare among satellites.

So maybe it was a bird. It does move very linear (birds usually don't) and doesn't look like other birds I had in view that evening, yet perhaps it was.

Receiving the Dr J. van der Bilt Prize

In 1945, the Royal Dutch Astronomy and Meteorology Association (KNVWS) established the Dr. J. van der Bilt Prize, named after professional astronomer Jan van der Bilt (1876-1962) who was the  NVWS president at that time.

The prize is awarded annually to a member of the KNVWS or one of its working groups, who (as an amateur) has conducted  work of scientific value, or who has seriously contributed to the popularization of astronomy. A list of past recipients (in Dutch) is here.

Last September I got a surprise phone call from the current KNVWS president, Niek de Kort, who informed me that the Van der Bilt Prize committee had decided to award the 2012 Van der Bilt Prize to me. Someone had nominated my name, and the committee chose me out of several nominees. I consider this a great honour!

The nicely calligraphed award certificate

(click to enlarge)

The award is for my work on meteors, asteroids and artificial satellites. I have authored/co-authored several peer-reviewed publications on meteors, the result of participation in a number of scientific research expeditions during a.o. the Perseids, Leonids, and alpha Monocerotids of 1992-2002 and recently the Draconids of 2011. I do astrometry on asteroids, and discovered several new asteroids (including a NEA). And my work on artificial satellites  is probably known to the reader as it is the main subject of this blog.

Yesterday (10 November 2012), on the Astrodag ("Astro Day") of the KNVWS in Goirle, the Prize was officially handed to me by KNVWS secretary Jan de Boer (see photograph below):

The Prize comes with a nicely calligraphed certificate (see first image in this post), listing the reasons for the award and then summing it up in an alliterating one-liner.

So it reads: "awarded because of his great merit as an observer of meteors, of asteroids and of satellites".

The alliterating one-liner following this is difficult to properly translate, but roughly translates to: "Discoverer of asteroids: at home among the gravel of the solar system" (the original in Dutch alliterates: "Thuis in het gruis van het zonnestelsel"), this referring to the central line of my interest: small solar system bodies.

The two little miniatures on the certificate show a golden meteor shooting across the starry sky, and a (slightly anthropomorph) asteroid.

Just like the naming of asteroid (183294) Langbroek after me a few years ago, I consider this award to be a great honour.

Below are some more pictures of the award ceremony. As is customary, I did a 45-minute talk following the acceptance of the award, my talk being titled "Hunting Asteroids".

(the pictures of the ceremony in this post were made by Robert Haas)

(click images to enlarge)

flowers for my girlfriend as well 

Receiving congratulations and some very kind words from astronomy Prof. emeritus Hugo van Woerden, one of the award committee members

 Receiving congratulations from BWGS Satellite Workgroup chair Bram Dorreman

Starting my lecture on Asteroids

A sad loss for SatTrackCam - R.I.P. Pippi (our cat), 12 May 2006 - 30 Oct 2012.

Pippi, 12 May 2006 - †30 October 2012

SatTrackCam Leiden (Cospar 4353) suffered a painful loss yesterday. Pippi, our cat, died from kidney failure at the age of only 6.5 (which is young for a cat).

Over the past 3 years Pippi was my furry companion during many observing sessions. She would  join me outside, sitting next to the tripod, watching carefully what I was doing (or, when it was cold, watch me from behind the window). When I occasionally moved from the courtyard to the city moat (some 50 meters distant from our house) to target geostationary satellites, she would go with me, sit next to me, frolick about a bit in the grass along the moat: and when it took too long to her liking, cross the road again and meow untill I would finish the session and walked back home with her.

She will be dearly missed and the observing sessions will definitely be a bit more lonely here. In more than one way this was a remarkable, smart and bright cat, and Suuz and I are deeply saddened by her untimely death.

Pippi watching me from behind the window during
an observing session (photo taken in April 2010):

Pippi as a kitten:

Pippi as an adult cat:

My favorite image of her: