At 0855 UTC (not timed to the exact second as I was did not want to take my eyes off it for a second!) in a clear Souitheastern sky I observed through binoculars a diffuse bright green glow, roughly triangular but elongated in shape and which faded to a white colour then dissipated by about 0857 It moved slowly in an easterly direction with a slight swing to the north. Hard to estimate magnitude with such a diffuse object, but I would guess that it got at least to mag 2, and at peak was visible without assistance. This corresponds exactly to the timing and orientation of MES-2 from the NROL launch, which is what I was looking out for, though I had thought it might be too low and too far to the east to be visible. Estimated position around RA 11h 40m to RA 12: 50 and Dec 34 44. Would be most grateful for confirmation or otherwise, though I don't know what else would fit the description and timing- did not seem likely to be normal cloud.or auroral. If confirmed, quite an unusual sighting for this vicinity I imagine! Robert 41.261S 174.948E ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ted Molczan" <molczan@rogers.com> To: "SeeSat-L" <SeeSat-L@satobs.org> Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2005 10:06 PM Subject: RE: NROL-23 launched > Dan Deak wrote: > >> The Atlas IIIB with a pair of NOSS satellites was launched as >> scheduled at 7:41 UTC. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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