There's lots of satellites (thousands) passing between arcturus and the big dipper at that time - can you either supply RA, DEC plus error or post your picture on a website and email a link to it and I can try to figure it out using a website that is good at identifying pictures of stars? Also please supply your lat,lon within a few miles. - George Roberts http://gr5.org ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ralf Vandebergh" <ralf.vandebergh@home.nl> To: <seesat-l@satobs.org> Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2010 5:24 AM Subject: identification help asked > Very high orbiting object; indication help asked! > _________________________________________________ > > July 4:)I was at the the telescope to await Cosmos 1812 during > a routine imaging session with multiple targets. This sat did not > show up. However.... > > Just a few minutes later, (22:40 UTC, July 4) a mag 1-2 object > appeared in the region between Arcturus and the Big Dipper. It > appeared as a fixed artificial star. It was directly clear this > must be an object in a very high orbit (estimated minimally 30.000km) > I directly manoeuvred the 10incher in position and I saw a very slow > movement of the object in the viewfinder.Images were obtained during > several seconds at 0.20''/p res.I just captured a few seconds of the > flare, and them brightness decreased back to a dim object. So I have > some frames of the flare and the decreasing trajectory back to a dim. > quick frame inspections revealed a very small disk, which is likely > of an object at this distance. > > Almost immediately I realised this object showed all the properties > of the mysterious Trumpet 3 satellite (USA-136)in its molniya orbit, > which I observed some years back regularly in the vicinity of the Little > Dipper. So I checked inCalsky the positioins of all Trumpet satellites > in oribt but non of them seemed to be positioned in that region. > The closest, I believe, was USA-200 but it was in Hercules constellation. > The others were almost all positioned in the Eastern sky regions. > > Comparing the very low angular speed and comparable magnitude > as I have seen of USA-136, it is most likely that it must be an > object with comparable altitude and dimensions. > > > Has anyone a suggestion? > > Thanks in advance, > > Ralf Vandebergh > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/private/seesat-l/attachments/20100706/c0ebcbb8/attachment.html > _______________________________________________ > Seesat-l mailing list > http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l > _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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