There is a report, plus video, at http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=442072 There was no large object re-entering near this time, but this could not have been a re-entry anyway. The reported duration of eight minutes is much too long; even a duration of three minutes would be too long for a re-entry observed from the Earth's surface and passing directly overhead. Obviously, this object did not pass overhead and, if a re-entry, should not have been visible for more than a minute or so. On any case, here is something seriously "not right" about the report. At a local time of 14:15 local time on November 19, the Sun would have been 6 degrees high in the south-south-west as seen from that location, only a few degrees lower than it was at midday. It was not "late afternoon" and nor should "dusk have been settling over southern Norway". If the Sun had been in that position, and object tracked from west to south, then it should have been visible in the video. It isn't. Also, the sky does appear to be darker than you would expect if the video had been taken in full daylight. In my opinion, the reported time is wrong. Yes, it is the time given on the video frame, but do we know that it was set correctly? It is possibly that the video was taken later, just after sunset when it really was the beginning of dusk. I am 100% certain that this was an aircraft leaving a short-duration condensation trail. If the time really was the beginning of dusk, then an aircraft and its condensation trail in the south-western part of the sky could still be illuminated by the Sun even though the Sun had set as seen from the ground. The condensation trail would appear very bright because of the effect of "forward scattering" of the sunlight in the darkening sky, and exactly like it appears on the video. The scattering, and the brightness of the trail, would have been greatest when the aircraft was most nearly "lined-up" with the Sun (wherever it was, above or below the horizon). You might only have been able to see the aircraft itself through binoculars, unless it glints in the sunlight, and it would be too far away for any noise to be heard. The fact that the "con-trail" lasts for only a few seconds depends on local high-altitude conditions. I get several reports every year about similar slow "re-entries" - almost all of them are in the general direction of the Sun close to or usually just after sunset or (like one a week or two ago from Scotland) just before sunrise. On the evening before the recent Scottish report, I saw the identical phenomenon (short duration con-trail showing strong forward scattering) in the SW evening sky from Edinburgh, so I knew that upper atmospheric conditions were favourable. Alan -- Alan Pickup / COSPAR 2707: 55.8968N 3.1989W +208m (WGS84 datum) Edinburgh / SatEvo & elsets: http://www.wingar.demon.co.uk/satevo/ Scotland / Decay Watch: http://www.wingar.demon.co.uk/satevo/dkwatch/ * ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Nov 23 2002 - 07:36:03 EST