Glassthrower
Vendor - Galactic Stone & Ironworks
Reged: 04/07/05
Posts: 14601
Loc: Hurricane Alley
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I just saw (8:39pm CST) what appeared to be 2 satellites travelling in tandem from south to north, just to the west of Cassiopeia. At first they were very bright, nearly as bright as Jupiter. It reminded me of when the shuttle was chasing the ISS. I ran inside to get my wife, and in the 60 seconds it took to do that, they had faded considerably in brightness so that they were quite faint and hard to see with the naked eye. Then they faded out of sight.
I went to Heavens Above and tried to look them up, but I still can't make heads or tails of that site - between the UTC time and too many options, I just can't use that site - it's too confusing.
Does anyone know what I saw?
Thanks!
MikeG
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Michael Gilmer - Member of the Meteoritical Society & Collector of Falling Stars.
Galactic Stone & Ironworks - Buy/Sell/Trade Meteorites, Moon Rocks, Mars Rocks, & 35 different falls and types!
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David Knisely
Postmaster
Reged: 04/19/04
Posts: 6760
Loc: Beatrice, Nebraska
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Quote:
I just saw (8:39pm CST) what appeared to be 2 satellites travelling in tandem from south to north, just to the west of Cassiopeia. At first they were very bright, nearly as bright as Jupiter. It reminded me of when the shuttle was chasing the ISS. I ran inside to get my wife, and in the 60 seconds it took to do that, they had faded considerably in brightness so that they were quite faint and hard to see with the naked eye. Then they faded out of sight.
I went to Heavens Above and tried to look them up, but I still can't make heads or tails of that site - between the UTC time and too many options, I just can't use that site - it's too confusing.
Does anyone know what I saw?
Thanks!
MikeG
It sounds like part of the NOSS satellites:
http://www.satobs.org/noss.html
They really generate a lot of interest when people who don't know about them get surprised when they see them. Clear skies to you.
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David W. Knisely
Hyde Memorial Observatory
http://www.hydeobservatory.info
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edcannon
professor emeritus
Reged: 11/19/03
Posts: 675
Loc: Austin, Texas
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If you saw them from Houma, LA, they were the NOSS 3-4 pair, catalog numbers 34701 and 34708, international designations 07-027A and 07-027C. They had gone right through your zenith before you saw them (at about 8:37). Right about 8:39 CDT (1:39 UTC) they were at altitude 53, azimuth 28.5 plus or minus .5; they were at RA 22:07, Dec +58.7 and RA 22:10, +58.5, going nearly straight down. You can put either of the catalog numbers into the heavens-above.com "select satellite" feature to get a pass "post-diction". (I used Quicksat to generate the "postdictions" I report above.)
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Ed Cannon - Austin, Texas, USA
As of 23 August 2008 - Celestron Skymaster 12x60
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Edholm
journeyman
Reged: 09/26/08
Posts: 7
Loc: 63.3°N,18.7°E [Sweden]
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Maybe we saw the same thing?
At 17:55 UTC (25/9) I saw 2 very bright (mag. -4) objects travelling in tandem from west passing almost overhead and enter eclipse about 20° alt in south-east. They were traveling very fast and the pass was over in about 30 seconds. Because my location is so north (63.3°N, 18.7°E) I can never see ISS, so I can’t make any compare.
At the time it was still twilight and only a few stars where visible (like Vega)
Was it anything from the Chinese Shenzhou launch? (Launch was at 13:10 UTC the same day) I have checked with "Heavens-Above.com" but can't find anything that would fit.
/Anders
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Glassthrower
Vendor - Galactic Stone & Ironworks
Reged: 04/07/05
Posts: 14601
Loc: Hurricane Alley
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Welcome to Cloudy Nights Anders! 
And thanks to Ed and David for the feedback.
My problem with Heavens Above (and some other sites) is that darn UTC time. It always throws me off. Is there any shortcut or easy way to convert standard time to UTC? I can add 12 hours to standard time to get military time, so is there any similar method I can use to easily get UTC time?
I used to have an applet called "Alpha Clock" that would display UTC time on my desktop. I became reliant on it. But when I switched over to Windows XP, it wouldn't run any more. I tried some fixes, but nothing worked and I lost Alpha Clock.
Regards and clear skies,
MikeG
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Michael Gilmer - Member of the Meteoritical Society & Collector of Falling Stars.
Galactic Stone & Ironworks - Buy/Sell/Trade Meteorites, Moon Rocks, Mars Rocks, & 35 different falls and types!
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Mark9473
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 07/21/05
Posts: 2664
Loc: 51°N 4°E
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Mike, instead of Heavens Above I use http://www.calsky.com/ which does give me events in my local time.
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Mark
Leica 8x20; Vixen 8x42; Swift 8.5x44, 10x50 and 20x80; TS 7x50; Orion 15x63
WO Megrez II 80 FD + Baader 90° T2 Amici
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Edholm
journeyman
Reged: 09/26/08
Posts: 7
Loc: 63.3°N,18.7°E [Sweden]
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Thanks for the welcome Mike :-)
For time-zones try this link http://www.worldtimezone.com/
There you can found both current UTC and the offset you need to apply if you want to make your own calculations.
/Anders
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Celticmoon
journeyman
Reged: 07/10/08
Posts: 5
Loc: Nashua, NH
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I saw the same thing through a small break in the clouds her in NH. I was curious about the two new stars in Cassiopeia myself, and stared at them a while to see if they would move. They didn't appear to at first, just hanging there under the main constellation. After about a half minute they started to finally move and as they did, went from the brightest objects other than Jupiter I have seen in a while to a full "fade to black".
I knew I could find the answer here.
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Orion XT-8
ETX-80 AT-TC
DS-114
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RandyR
Enginerd
Reged: 04/01/04
Posts: 14033
Loc: Castle Rock, CO 6677' MSL
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Mike, I believe Louisiana is on Central Time.
During Daylight time, add 5 hours to your local time for UTC (or subtract 5 from UTC to get your time). During Standard time the difference is 6 hours. So, as I write this it's 2130 CST, which would be 0330 UTC.
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"Dark Skies & Great Viewing"
RandyR / NQ0R
GPS 9.25 XLT/Sky Align /FeatherTouch
TV85 w/FeatherTouch
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edcannon
professor emeritus
Reged: 11/19/03
Posts: 675
Loc: Austin, Texas
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Quote:
Maybe we saw the same thing?
At 17:55 UTC (25/9) I saw 2 very bright (mag. -4) objects travelling in tandem from west passing almost overhead and enter eclipse about 20° alt in south-east. They were traveling very fast and the pass was over in about 30 seconds. Because my location is so north (63.3°N, 18.7°E) I can never see ISS, so I can’t make any compare.
At the time it was still twilight and only a few stars where visible (like Vega)
Was it anything from the Chinese Shenzhou launch? (Launch was at 13:10 UTC the same day) I have checked with "Heavens-Above.com" but can't find anything that would fit.
/Anders
Anders,
Shenzhou 7 was too far south -- even moreso than ISS. Did you try the calsky site?
With something low and fast, your location needs to be as specific as possible due to parallax effects.
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Ed Cannon - Austin, Texas, USA
As of 23 August 2008 - Celestron Skymaster 12x60
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Edholm
journeyman
Reged: 09/26/08
Posts: 7
Loc: 63.3°N,18.7°E [Sweden]
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Hello Ed
First thanks for the Calsky tips, it seems like it’s better than Heavens-Above.
Heavens-Above found no candidate but Calsky found two candidates.
Predictions for my location give
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SL-12 PLAT (33381 2008-046-D)
Appears 19h51m24s 10.2mag az:290.5° WNW horizon
Culmination 19h54m35s 2.1mag az:209.2° SSW h:37.9°
distance: 259.7km height above Earth: 162.8km elevation of sun: -10°
Disappears 19h55m22s 2.6mag az:149.0° SSE h:20.0°
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SL-12 R/B (1)(33382 2008-046-E)
Appears 19h49m58s 10.4mag az:291.1° WNW horizon
Culmination 19h53m28s 2.3mag az:208.9° SSW h:44.1°
distance: 277.7km height above Earth: 196.2km elevation of sun: -10°
Disappears 19h54m37s 3.2mag az:140.1° SE h:17.3°
Time uncertainty of about 1 minutes
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If I spotted them at "Culmination" I guess the time could have been correct, 50sec from culmination to eclipse compared to my 30sec estimate (time flys when you have fun). The satellites enters eclipse at 17.3° and 20.0° SE which is almost spot-on to my estimate 20°.
The magnitude prediction of 2.1 and 2.3 is my biggest concern. At the time I know for a fact that only a few of the brightest stars where barly visible and the sky was dark blue, still both satellites easy outshine anything else in the sky at the time.
Could the mag. prediction be off by so much?
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hwhall
member
Reged: 09/22/08
Posts: 46
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> Could the mag. prediction be off by so much? <
Seems to me that predicting the brightness of a rocket body (& maybe a platform depending on its dimensions) would be pretty "iffy" since these objects are often tumbling (no attitude control) and apparent brightness would be dependent on orientation of the object surfaces with respect to the sun & observer. Perhaps the prediction was actually some sort of averaged value?
--Wayne
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Denis
sage
Reged: 12/24/05
Posts: 219
Loc: Rennes, France
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In calsky, to find some flaring satellites, you'll need to request some very low magnitudes(10 or 15)in the box and check manual selection, so you'll have many satellites to check. If you have a double or triple flare it's often a pair or trio of noss satellites (generaly mag 6 to 9) which are on a good illumination angle, but there are not flare predictions for those ones. only for iridiums and a few other satellites known to produce flare at regular intervals.
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Canon 10x42 IS binoculars.
Meade sc 4" on homemade fork equatorial mount.
homemade 10" an 14" dobsonian
Nikon photogear.
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Edholm
journeyman
Reged: 09/26/08
Posts: 7
Loc: 63.3°N,18.7°E [Sweden]
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Maybe I was lucky and the two satellites had the correct "flare angle”.
I now consider the two "UFOs" identified.
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Denis
sage
Reged: 12/24/05
Posts: 219
Loc: Rennes, France
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Possible and they were very low. You are certainly the last one to observe them as they decayed le 26/9.
http://www.heavens-above.com/satinfo.aspx?Session=kebgcobblmmkcicmjnkcdjle&SatID=33382
--------------------
Canon 10x42 IS binoculars.
Meade sc 4" on homemade fork equatorial mount.
homemade 10" an 14" dobsonian
Nikon photogear.
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mrkube
member
Reged: 04/30/08
Posts: 31
Loc: Eastern PA
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I saw something very similar to this last night maybe around 8-8:30. First I noticed one satellite moving Northeast to Southwest. Then I thought I was seeing double, but checked the scope and sure enough another one was just off to the West. I was able to track them for about 30 seconds with my z10, which was somewhat easy with the 32mm. I did notice however, the object that was more West seemed to be moving slightly faster and so I don't think they were really in tandem. Another cool thing I saw last night was a jet pass in front of Andromeda, kind of surprising and neat to see.
EDIT: Kind of like Denis' avatar right above 
Edited by mrkube (10/18/08 03:11 PM)
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Edholm
journeyman
Reged: 09/26/08
Posts: 7
Loc: 63.3°N,18.7°E [Sweden]
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Denis, Thanks for the information. 
I didn't know they deorbit, and so soon after my observation. When I first spotted the two satellites my first thought was "a fireball!" because of the speed and brightness.
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newo
newbie
Reged: 10/23/08
Posts: 2
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hello, I am French. I could observe fives orange/red trails very quickly going in the sky, in the nights of September 25, hour: 23H10 (20h00 UTC).
I saw on this forum, that a Swedish person has could see the same thing, or almost, since ornskoldsvik, to 17:55 UTC (20:05 in France).
I would like to know if SL-12 PLAT and SL 12 r/b 1 are satellites, or are parts of the booster rocket? I would like to also know the speed of the object observed. 2000 kilometers separate the two places from observations, with 3 hours of shifts, which makes approximately 700 kilometer/hours. is this exact???
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Denis
sage
Reged: 12/24/05
Posts: 219
Loc: Rennes, France
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Hello Newo. Welcome on CN. I gave you a response on a french forum 
Edholm observe the pass of the two parts from SL12 but between this pass over sweden and the decaying observed over the france, these parts had time to travel two orbits around the earth, This being confirmed by calsky.
You can verify on this link (enter different times between 20h and 23h ) :
http://www.calsky.com/csrender.cgi?&object=Satellite&number=3&sat=33381&tracker
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Canon 10x42 IS binoculars.
Meade sc 4" on homemade fork equatorial mount.
homemade 10" an 14" dobsonian
Nikon photogear.
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Denis
sage
Reged: 12/24/05
Posts: 219
Loc: Rennes, France
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And the link of the decaying datas. This decaying has been observed by many french peoples three hours after Edholm observe the pass over sweden.
http://www.reentrynews.com/2008046d.html
The second part SL12 R/B decayed the day after south of Australia : http://www.reentrynews.com/2008046e.html
--------------------
Canon 10x42 IS binoculars.
Meade sc 4" on homemade fork equatorial mount.
homemade 10" an 14" dobsonian
Nikon photogear.
Edited by Denis (10/24/08 09:28 AM)
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