I was expecting when a fireball was seen at about 0920 UTC on Friday over New Zealand that someone would jump to the conclusion that it was 42057 Soyuz R/B despite the fact that this was impossible because it had passed at around 0835 UTC! Sure enough but I didn't expect it to be "confirmed" by an observatory, using Joseph Remis' predictions to justify it (with reference to the picture but apparently not taking into account the TLEs he circulates.) http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/89800333/reports-of-meteor-seen-across-central-new-zealand I have pointed out on Stuff's Facebook page that in fact Joseph's map shows that it is impossible for the object to have passed over NZ at the time of the sighting of the fireball because it is not compatible with the time flagged for the later possible decay pass over Australia. There is one reference to two objects passing at 0840, but these are too vague and the south to north one can be ignored. Unless the object was burning up (and as it didn't decay till much later and not over New Zealand this is unlikely) it would have hardly been visible. The ISS passed a little earlier. I can't see anything else which could account for a satellite decay at the time of the fireball, but if anyone can I would appreciate being informed, otherwise it would appear it was a meteor. Robert Wainuiomata New Zealand S 41.244 E 174.943 _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-lReceived on Sun Feb 26 2017 - 21:52:38 UTC
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