Cloud of unknown origin seen

From: Daniel Deak (dan.deak@sympatico.ca)
Date: Thu Jun 24 2004 - 20:41:26 EDT

  • Next message: Mir16609@aol.com: "Re: Cloud of unknown origin seen"

    Hi all,
    
    Yesterday night, at 04:10 UTC on June 24, we were 10 people around a campfire at 
    home celebrating our national holiday (St-Jean-Baptiste or Fete nationale). I 
    retreated to a darker place to ... and noticed a relatively bright cloud under 
    the Milky Way in Pegasus (aprox. coord. RA 22h40 dec +13). Our sky was clear and 
    very dark, the Milky Way was very easy to see and this cloud had about the same 
    brightness. It was 3 to 4 degrees in length and reminded me of the fuel dump 
    clouds I've observed in the past.
    
    I immediately thought it was from the Delta 2 rocket that just launched a GPS 
    sat. I asked a few people to confirm my observation and they saw it easily. It 
    stayed visible for over 10 minutes and slowly drifted eastward while 
    dissipating. Today I checked the orbits for the GPS launch objects and neither 
    was in that vicinity at that moment. I checked with mccants.tle and could not 
    find a candidate. Does anyone have an idea ? The shape was elongated and aligned 
    roughly parallel to the celestial equator. It looked like a diffuse comet tail.
    
    If this cloud was from a fuel dump or a rocket burn, I was very fortunate to see 
    it, thanks to my bladder... :-)
    
    Dan
    
    -- 
    Daniel Deak
    representant, projet spatial Starshine
    L'Avenir, Quebec
    
    COSPAR site 1747 : 45.7275°N, 72.3526°W, 191 m., UTC-5:00
    
    Site en francais sur les satellites:
    French-language satellite web site : http://www.obsat.com
    
    
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