RE: What are these satellites?

From: Ted Molczan (ssl3molcz@rogers.com)
Date: Mon Aug 13 2012 - 17:25:17 UTC

  • Next message: Russell Eberst: "Re: What are these satellites?"

    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
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Aug 13 2012 - 17:26:04 UTC