That would seem to match with the warhead bus maneuvering and detaching warheads then, during the ascending and top portion of the trajectory. I have to wonder if the brightening was a bus maneuvering motor pointed more or less straight at the camera. The others, we just saw exhaust, but that could have been looking straight into the engine. On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 12:41 PM, Marco Langbroek <marco.langbroek@online.nl > wrote: > Op 24-9-2013 23:21, Jonathan McDowell schreef: > > I don't buy that the events seen were early stage ignitions - I > > believe the launch was much nearer Florida and > > the brightenings and clouds were associated with MIRV bus burns and > > reentry vehicle releases during the descending phase. > > > You are right. I did some calculations, this time taking earth curvature > into > account (I should have done that right away, with these horizontal > distances). > > I went from the assumption that the major axis of the polygon from Ted's > Broadcast Warning exclusion zone in the S-Atlantic > (http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Sep-2013/0222.html) was indicative of the > launch > trajectory azimuth. > > Next I determined where the sightline azimuths from Jan Hattenbach's > imagery > crossed this trajectory line, providing distances. > > For the two points in question where something seems to "ignite" (sudden > trail > brightening, followed by expanding cloud) at 21:17:08 and 21:18:43 UT, I > calculated that: > > a) Horizontal distances are approximately 2375 resp. 2240 km (in azimuth > 264.7 > resp. 259.9); > b) the object needs to be at an altitude of at least 380 km resp. 335 km > above > sealevel to clear the horizon as seen at 2300 meter from La Palma; > c) from the determined altitudes (determined from the measured RA/DEC) in > degrees above the horizon at these moments, the aproximate altitudes of the > missile above sealevel at these moments are 450 km resp. 680 km; > d) positions are approximately 24.725 N/41.385 W resp. 23.477 N/39.537 W at > these points in the trajectory. > > Note: this all goes from the assumption that the direction of the major > axis of > the oblong exclusion zone in the S-Atlantic found by Ted, determines the > trajectory azimuth. It also assumes my math is correct.... > > Point (b) shows that these two moments hence indeed are probably NOT the > 2nd and > 3rd stage ignition as I initially (and hence erroneously) interpreted > them, as > these reportedly happen at 70 km and 150 km altitude with the Trident (much > lower than the altitudes I now calculate). > > I am doing this calculation for more measured points over the trajectory > currently, but this takes some time. > > - Marco > > > ----- > Dr Marco Langbroek - SatTrackCam Leiden, the Netherlands. > e-mail: sattrackcam@langbroek.org > > Cospar 4353 (Leiden): 52.15412 N, 4.49081 E (WGS84), +0 m ASL > Cospar 4354 (De Wilck): 52.11685 N, 4.56016 E (WGS84), -2 m ASL > Station (b)log: http://sattrackcam.blogspot.com > Twitter: @Marco_Langbroek > ----- > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Seesat-l mailing list > http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l > -- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/private/seesat-l/attachments/20130925/2a2d32bf/attachment.html _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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