Lee Emerson wrote: > At 10:50 UTC on the 23rd December I saw three satellites travelling in line > in a NNE direction from about 80 degrees alt. They entered the earth's > shadow fairly quickly. They were equidistant from each other and spanned > roughly the same distance as the belt of Orion. I would put their magnitude > as roughly equivalent to the brightest stars visible in the constellation of > the Pleiades whose position was near to the satellites' path. They appeared > to be travelling directly in line (along the axis of their path) and at > exactly the same speed suggesting that they were at the same height. > > Amazingly about two minutes later two more satellites travelling virtually > on the same path and apparently at the same speed as each other passed > overhead in the same direction . They weren't exactly in line though as the > other three were. Their magnitude appeared to be equal to some off the > dimmer stars in the Pleiades. Welcome to SeeSat-L Lee. Congratulations, you have spotted two generations of US naval ocean surveillance satellites or NOSS. Second-generation NOSS fly in trios, though they are usually seen in a triangle formation. Third-generation NOSS fly in pairs with the leader offset slightly with the trailer. Run a Google search for "NOSS" and you will find a lot of information on the net, even though this is a classified programme. Under the right conditions these are visible with the naked eye. Best wishes Bruce Bruce MacDonald COSPAR Site 2751 Devizes, Wiltshire, UK 51.3440 N 1.9849 W 125m (WGS84) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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