Russell, thank you for identifying the star field so quickly; an extraordinary skill. Tony, thank you for giving my observation a look. I brought up the red/orange matter just to note that satellite appearance had previously been an area of discussion on SeeSat and I thought others might be interested to hear about a violet observation. Your analysis fits the observation in every detail. I am not sure how I missed SPOT 5? Regarding the solar panels, I will make some additional observations to verify if the violet coloring is typical or atypical for this satellite. Jim, thank you for confirming the ID. Interesting that you note a 4.2 brightness but when I run HA this morning I get 3.2. Over the last few weeks I have noted large discrepancies between HA predicted brightness and actual observed brightness (a separate matter). Your research supports Tony's conclusions, it would appear that the solar panels reflect short wavelength light possibly to minimize heating without significantly reducing efficiency. Thank you to everyone who looked at my images and for the contributions that explained my observation. Best regards, Chris -----Original Message----- From: Tony Beresford [mailto:dberesford@adam.com.au] Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2010 3:20 AM To: Chris Zietkiewicz Subject: Re: Violet Satellite Appearance At 03:05 PM 10/08/2010, you wrote: >On Sunday evening I observed a violet appearing satellite. A portion of the >track was captured with a DSLR and can be seen here. > >http://www.flickr.com/photos/52513173@N03/ Chris, using the coords given by Russel, The only candidate is the European Earth Observation Satellite SPOT 5 Number 27421 , International ID 2002 21A A plot of this object among the stars for your location can be seen by this link http://www.heavens-above.com/PassDetails.asp?lat=40.27941&lng=-105.33582&loc =za&alt=6440&tz=MST&satid=27421&date=40399.2177310995 This is not the any of Red/orange satellites reported on seesat. These are usually one of the lacrosse series of radar satellites or the ISS observed when the sun-satellite observer passes through the ISS solar panels. Tony Beresford Adelaide South Australia Satellite Observer _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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