Leo Wikholm wrote: > Harry and Kirsi Lehto observed very bright satellites when they were > watching Perseids meteor shower in Kaarina, Finland. They took a photo > which reveals two satellites on the right. > > Observation site: Kaarina, Finland +60.24N +22.22E 20 m ASL > Time: August 12, 2012 at 1.36 local time (UTC+3) > So, the UTC time was August 11, 22.36 > > Horizont is on the rightside. On the top left are you will see Vega and > below is Cygni and on the bottom right you will find Altair. > > http://www.taivaanvahti.fi/images/uploads/201208/7016_31de10151664370305c2f7a29c01a400.jpg > > I have tried to track this by using Space Track elements with Heavensat, > but there are no good results available. > > I have also received two other (no photo) observations from this same phenomenon. They observed one of the NOSS (Naval Ocean Surveillance System) pairs (NOSS 3-4). Here is Heavens-Above's plot of the track of the leading object: http://www.heavens-above.com/PassDetails.asp?lat=60.41667&lng=22.41667&loc=Kaarina&alt=22&tz=EET&satid=31701&date=41132. 9446706366 Normally, they are not very bright, around mag 5 or 6 on a good pass, but sometimes they flare to exceptional brightness. I received a sighting report off-list from an observer in Germany, who also saw them flaring at the same time they were observed from Finland. Information about NOSS is available here: http://www.satobs.org/noss.html Ted Molczan _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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