The fuel dump by the CZ-4C upper stage that launched China's third NOSS-like triad was seen over Australia, and a long video was made by Lou20764, from Melbourne. The event occurred on 2013 Sep 01 about 19:49 UTC (Sep 02 05:49 local time). The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FryZrDKwv_o Lou20764 seems to believe he saw some sort of ET craft, and so far has been refractory to other ideas. When Jim Oberg posted a congratulatory note on his having captured the fuel dump and requested some technical details, Lou20764 deleted his messages and blocked him from making further comments. Unfortunate behavior, but it should not prevent us from enjoying the latest fuel dump imagery. I have plotted a portion of the trajectory that passed some readily identifiable stars, beginning about 07m20s into the video: http://satobs.org/seesat_ref/misc/Yaogan_17_fuel_dump.png I used Simone Corbellini's web-based plotter, located here: http://www.satflare.com It should be noted that the portion of the trajectory plotted occurred at high elevation from Melbourne (>60 deg); therefore, the sky track is somewhat sensitive to the site coordinates of the observer, which are only approximately known. I used the first TLE of the A object (13046A / 39239), but the corresponding TLEs of the other objects yield similar, closely spaced, parallel tracks. The annotated video elapsed times are accurate to within a second or two; the first and second ones were especially difficult to judge, due to some camera movement around those times. The correlation with the Yaogan 17 trajectory is obvious. While we are on the subject of fuel dumps, here is Greg Roberts' fine video of the plume from the Atlas V Centaur that launched OTV 3 last December, nicely produced by Willie Koorts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-VIwheIPPw&feature=youtu.be Unsurprisingly, that event also resulted in UFO reports: http://uforsa.co.za/2012/12/ufo-sighting-in-cape-town-5.html I do not accept the ET hypothesis, but UFO reports of satellite phenomena can be a valuable resource, provided they are sufficiently detailed and precise. For example, my continuing project to produce a catalogue of visually observed re-entries from Earth orbit benefitted greatly from UFO reports, many decades old, that strongly correlate with known re-entries. Over the past couple of decades, I have heard from quite a few UFO researchers and witnesses, and was pleased to provide what assistance I could regarding possible satellite correlations. Several UFO researchers responded to the first draft of my re-entry sightings compilation with tips on additional suspected re-entries, most of which proved to correlate with known re-entries. More on that later, when I publish the comprehensive history. Ted Molczan _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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