I Need your help again
Wayne T Hally (meteors@eclipse.net)
Wed, 7 Jul 1999 12:34:39 -0400
Hi folks,
This is meteor observer and satellite lurker Wayne once again coming to
you with hat in hand needing assistance. Unfortunately, to meteor
observers, satellites are to a large part an insidious form of light
pollution. For example, inexperienced observers can be fooled by an Iridium
flare, although those that have been around the block for a while learn to
recognize the color, angular velocity, and flare brightness profile (and I
always have a printout of the nights flares at hand when observing).
Unfortunately that is not applicable to out of control Iridiums which can
flash at unexpected (for GSOC at least) times, locations and with brightess
profiles that are not the usual. These can be very difficult to categorize
as meteor or satellite. And various flashers can also be a challenge for
the novice confusing them with what are called "point meteors" i.e meteors
that are arriving head on toward the observer and therefore have no
apparant motion. Now that I have been laid off (after 19 years) I intend to
get one of the prediction programs up and running on my computer, so
hopefully I won't be such a pest in the future :->
So with all that said, here are today's challenges:
The first is an old one..and I suspect only a few of you, if any will be
able to help me, if anyone can at all. This event occurred on 1998 Dec 14,
at 08:36:48 UT
(03:36:48 EST). At that time I observed...THROUGH THE CLOUDS...what I
recorded as a -8 Magnitude meteor. The position is a little fuzzy, since it
was through clouds, but the coordinates are close since Aldebaran was
nearby and I used that as a reference. The position I recorded was Azimuth
271 Elevation 20, or RA 4h 8m, Dec +13.7. My location is NJAA OBSERVATORY,
HIGH BRIDGE, NJ USA
COORDINATES: 74d 53' 54" West 40d 40' 52" North
ELEVATION: 830 feet (253 Meters). Because it was through the clouds, I was
unable to determine a direction of motion...and the Mag -8 must be
considered a minimum brightness. This limits it to a very few satellites I
expect..and the fact that it was low in the west a few hours before dawn
also would seem to eliminate satellites, but I just thought I'd check if
anything was nearby and/or likely. This was on the peak night of the
Geminid meteor shower, so it is possible it was a Geminid or a sporadic
meteor...I was unable to determine which since due to the clouds I didn't
really pick up any motion. However it was a busy meteor night with 176
Geminids, 29 from other showers, and 45 sporadics counted in 4.75 (chilly)
hours so that certainly is possible.
The second one is not a meteor related sighting, rather it's an UNID for
me. On July 5th 1999 at 22:18 EDT (02:18 July 6 UT) from the same location,
I was out checking sky conditions when I observed a bright satellite
(~+0.5) about 40 degrees elevation in the WSW moving from NW to SW. This
was a slow moving satellite, much slower than ISS or MIR, hence it must be
in a pretty high orbit, which is why the brightness surprised me. A check
of the GSOC page showed nothing at that time...in addition, few objects are
that bright. Any idea what I saw?
I actually had a third challenge, but I seem to have misplaced the
information, so I'll have to post that when I find it....so see, y'all got
off easy :->
Thanx in advance for any assistance you can give me
Meteor Wayne