At 21:27 7/11/04, Steve & Bernadette Hannah. wrote: >Hi to all the list,.... ... > Anyway, tonight , about 22:25 GMT +13, I saw three satellites moving at the same speed, >in close proximity to one another ( a hand at arms length covered them, not sure what that >is in degrees ) , they were travelling approx SW to NE & all had much the same brightness, >about magnitude 3 .I`d have put their altitude at about 75 degrees. Their relative >positions did not appear to cange in the time I observed them, maybe 2 minutes. Hi there Steve. Welcome to the list. What you saw was one of the NOSS triplets satellites. In fact the triplet us observers unofficially call NOSS2-1, Noss 2-2 and NOSS 2-3. IF you use the select a satellite by name facility at Heavens above ,using the string NOSS% you will get a full list of the NOSS satellites. If you then pick any of the above 3, and get apasses for your past evening, you will see they went SW to NNE at a max elev of 88 degrees. The firsr genewration ones are fainter, and harder to see. The second generation ones are spasmodically naked eye brightness but usually only visible in binoculars. The third generation satellites are pairs rather than triplets and not named as such on HA. They are also occasionally bright enough for casual observers to see. Two members of my local astro society have noticed the pairs, and several more the triplets. You can read a little about them on the VSOP webpage at http://www.satobs.org/noss.html Tony Beresford Adelaide So. Australia ( -34.9638, 138.6333E) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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