Re: Unidentified flaring satellite

From: Ricardo J. Tohmé via Seesat-l <seesat-l_at_satobs.org>
Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 10:10:20 -0300
Thanks Leo, David and Simone for your help.

After adding the classified satellites TLEs to Stellarium I couldn't help
noticing that the path of the unidentified satellite in the sky matches the
one for Helios 1A almost perfectly. The French satellite passed by the area
less than 3 minutes before the alleged timestamp on the video, with exactly
the same orientation and direction, so it would seem to fit the description
almost perfectly. However, the Helios 1A path seems to be almost 1 degree
higher in the sky than the path followed by the satellite on the video, as
you can see here:

http://astronomiaonline.com/blog/helios1a.png

Is such a discrepancy normal? Are Mike McCants' classified TLEs reasonably
up to date? Also, is Helios 1A known to flare like that?

Once again, thanks in advance to all the involved.

Regards,

Ricardo J. Tohmé
rtohme_at_gmail.com

On Wed, May 6, 2015 at 2:56 AM, David Rogers <david_at_karmilla.co.uk> wrote:

> Try...
>
> https://www.prismnet.com/~mmccants/tles/classfd.zip
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Seesat-l [mailto:seesat-l-bounces+david=blueskyday.biz_at_satobs.org]
> On Behalf Of Leo Barhorst via Seesat-l
> Sent: 06 May 2015 06:54
> To: Ricardo J. Tohmé; Seesat-L
> Subject: Re: Unidentified flaring satellite
>
>  Ricardo,
>
> This looks like a tumbling satellite with some flares.
> Probably a classified sat and these are not all shown on HA.
> Use the classfd.tle file from Mike McCants wedpage
> www.prismnet.com/~mmccants/Tles/classfd.zip
>
> Regards
> Leo Barhorst
>
>
> 2015-05-06 6:11 GMT+02:00 Ricardo J. Tohmé <seesat-l_at_satobs.org>:
> > I'm sorry about asking this since I'm quite a newbie when it comes to
> > identifying unknown satellites, but sadly, the following video is
> > being touted by the local media as an UFO seen from my city, Bahía
> > Blanca (latitude 38º 44' 06" S, longitude 62º 14' 02" W) on the
> > evening of Monday, April 4th, 2015:
> >
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPikxwZgmjQ
> >
> > Since it seemed to me this was nothing but some satellite flare, I
> > decided to look into the issue and try to identify it. I grabbed a
> > screenshot from the 2m8s mark on the video, deleted the satellite
> > using Photoshop, and Astrometry.net promptly identified the sky area
> > as part of the constellation Columba:
> >
> > http://nova.astrometry.net/user_images/663199#annotated
> >
> > So basically, this would put the unidentified satellite almost "touching"
> > the star Xi Columbae (HIP 28010) at 07:20:53pm, and the star Gamma
> > Columbae (HIP 28199) at 07:20:57pm, assuming the video timestamp is
> > accurate (which the observer that videotaped this claims to be).
> >
> > Taking this into account, I've done searches for known satellites
> > using Stellarium and Heavens-Above.com and have come empty-handed in
> both cases.
> > I have no doubt someone on this list will be able to easily check
> > this, or at least provide some advice on how to deepen the search.
> >
> > Thanks in advance,
> >
> > Ricardo J. Tohmé
> > rtohme_at_gmail.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > Seesat-l mailing list
> > http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
>
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Received on Wed May 06 2015 - 08:11:33 UTC

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