Re: Bahamas lights

Tony Beresford (starman@camtech.net.au)
Sun, 07 Jun 1998 19:24:57 +0900

At 03:35 7/06/98 -0400, SATO@wpb.nuwc.navy.mil wrote:
>
> 
>Hello All Satellite fanatics,
> 
>what was a bright blue and white light in the sky traveling on a course 
>roughly 106 degrees to 286 degrees (It scared my cat). It lit up the ground 
>and sky and looked like a sparkler. It took about l2 seconds to transverse 
>the sky. The time was 005122 UTC.  Heard a sonic boom at 005336. So it took 
>2 minutes and 14 seconds to hear the sonic boom (Bolide or satellite). 
>Must have been far away to take that long for the sound to reach earth but 
>it was very bright and looked close.
It was a meteor, Iridium 69 rocket was still in orbit at that time, and anyway
is in a polar orbit. Your description is of an object travelling East to west.
There arent many of those, and none near decay. I would urge you to submit
a fireball report to the International meteor Organization[ search on IMO].
>Second Question

> 
>First pass :  Thursday June 5th 1998 0051 UTC
>Second pass:  Sunday   June 7th 1998 0018 UTC 
> 
>Bahamas location  24.4990.00
>                 -77.7191.24
Thats easy just by running the bright satellite prediction programme on
the GSOC/DLR site , its the radar based satellite known as Lacrosse 3.
(http://www.gsoc.dlr.de/satvis). You will find lacrosse 3 elements in\
the molczan element sets in various places.
Tony Beresford