At 13:16 2/08/04, oliver wrote: >Observed from 43 0' N 78 11' W (Batavia NY) 8/1/04 between 20.20 hrs >and 20.30 hrs >at an altitude of approximately 80 degrees due South moving from West to >East. I am not a skilled observer so please excuse my clumsy attempts to >report this as clearly as you would like. I was standing outside a >relative's house with several family members observing what a beautiful >clear evening it was. Aircraft at high cruising altitude could be >clearly observed. A few weeks prior I had observed a satellite from the >same location. I asked for binoculars and focused on the object which >appeared to be travelling around orbital speed. I handed the binoculars >to my wife and continued to observe with the naked eye. >She let out an exclamation and said it was breaking up into first two, >then four, then multiple pieces over a ten to fifteen second period. At >that point I could no longer see the object with the naked eye. >How rare is it to observe an object re-entering the atmosphere through >binoculars? >Since my wife rarely looks through binoculars and more rarely looks >skyward she was really impressed. >Can anyone tell us what this object might have been? H2A DEB perhaps? Orbit Information Group (OIG) at goddard SFC shows no re-entries due at this time Oliver. I certainly wasnt the H2DEB object due in soon, thats in a polar orbit, which doesnt pass over your longitude till around midnight EDT. It was still in orbit 8 hours before your observation, and of course would have been moving N -> S. I think you saw a slow moving meteor. Tony Beresford ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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