ISS & Supply Ship Sighting ... ... Not ? Hmmm ....

From: joseph daniel <station969_at_hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2014 04:31:04 -0500
 Things that make you go "Hmmm ..." .  This one was a bit of a wild ride also (shades of summer - 2012) .

  Thought I heard a noise in the backyard and looked out my dark bedroom's window to see 2 very bright lights in the ESE sky moving
in a NW -> ESE direction slowly , and immediately recognized that pair as the ISS with a trailing supply ship . Noted time & sky posit& jumped on NASA's site to the 'Spot The Station' page to see when the next pass might be , only to discover that yes , there wasindeed a supply ship visiting this week as a matter of fact , but that I had already missed the only observable fly-over event .
Hmmm .... (furrows brow)
  NASA had info showing a sighting op yesterday for CYGNUS/ISS around the same ET time for my NA local , yet only that 1 single opfor the whole entire CYGNUS CRS-1 mission . However , I had also just missed a solo ISS sighting op this evening as well .
 Of course I just assumed that there had been a slight change of plans for this mission and that I had been very lucky to have caughtthe 2 objects bright pass , even though NASA had not updated it's website to reflect recent mission changes .
  Then , a Google search suggested another NASA page announcing the supply ship successfully burning up on re-entry already .http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/02/orb-1-cygnus-departs-iss-fiery-farewell/ 
Hmmm ....  (that's interesting)

  Jumped on 'Heavens Above' , but no mention of CYGNUS mission sighting ops anywhere , although supply ship sightings were alwaysposted previously , I believe . Perhaps they were removed after CYGNUS burned up earlier ? I kind of doubted that , though .
Hmmm .... (oh well)
 Google showed many pages featuring the recent supply/trash mission but no spacecraft designation number (to use on HA's databaselook-up feature) to be found anywhere on the net (in a reasonable amount of time) .

 Hang on ! The evening's ISS sighting opportunity that NASA suggested (that had taken place just 20 minutes prior to my observation) hada trajectory that was almost exactly parallel to the path that my dual UNIDS were on , according to  Heavens Above's ISS Sky-Chart feature . 
Hmmm .... (long curious gaze at 28 inch 1920x1080 120Hz "cheaper" sub standard Korean 16bit-capable LCD computer screen) 

  Nothing in HA's long list of possible sat sightings on it's 'Daily Prediction Page was even remotely similiar to what was just witnessed .
 At this point however , not even the least bit surprised about that particular part of the puzzle .

  Lastly , I checked HA's Iridium Flare sighting ops page to discover there was a -8 Flare & near the same elevation at that time but over95 degrees to the north of the dual UNIDs position , which ruled out yet another possible candidate , but at the same time reminded thatthe near-space sky is a very , very busy place indeed .

UTC 00:20:45 Feb 20 2014
43.19291 -79.29691 100M

Dual flares traveling 2 degrees apart on the exact same path (no offset) .
Observed for 15-20 seconds .
Full length of observable flare is unknown .
Each flare's brightness would be a guess of -2 to -4 (observed from indoors) .'Fade To Black' time was easily <2 seconds . 

Azimuth 105   Elevation 12

Both traveling in a direction from a NW Azimuth of ~300 to Azimuth ~110 ESE
gc
 		 	   		  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/private/seesat-l/attachments/20140220/fba00b20/attachment.html 
_______________________________________________
Seesat-l mailing list
http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
Received on Thu Feb 20 2014 - 09:31:31 UTC

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 : Fri Mar 07 2014 - 23:11:58 UTC