4 replies to this topic

[BASTP]

Hello to all,

I live on the island of Sao Tomé, almost on the Equator line at 0°N, 6°E, near the village of Porto Alegre.

Tonight at around 6pm, right after sunset, I was observing the Moon almost at zenith and noticed a bright object zooming passed it very quickly, from NW to SE.

It seemed to me that it was going as fast as the ISS would have ( I already observed passing over my location) so at first I thought it was exactly that : the ISS. But suddenly it started blowing out some sort of cloud of dust or steam around it, very much like a booster from a rocket (saw something similar looking on TV once), however it looked like it blew off this steam several times before it disappeared on the horizon to the SE. hte whole phenomenon took 10 to 15 seconds in total. It was fast but slow enough for us 3 people to see it at the same time, and we were even able to follow it as it was going down through some trees. It definitely wasn't a shooting star or meteor, as it didn't leave any trace behind and it had a bright center point of light that was always visible. When it was blowing off this kind of steam, my friend even said it looked like a comet...

I'm thinking it may be a booster re-entry, but I'm not sure. Where can I go to find out what was flying over me at this time on that particular location? Thank you so much for your help.

 

Bastien

[Dave Mitsky]

It may have been a fuel dump from an upper rocket stage.

https://sattrackcam....pper-stage.html

https://www.space.co...el-dump-visible

[Fabricius]

Heavens-above.com > Location > Select location: Sao Tomé > refresh > Daily predictions of brightest satellites.

 

Did you observe this one?

ARIANE 5 R/B - magnitude 1.6 (very bright!) - 17:47 to 17:58 local time - moving from West (Ophiuchus) to East (Cetus).

Edited by Fabricius, 12 November 2024 - 12:29 AM.

[triplemon]

There was a SpaceX launch today, November 11, 12:22pm ET ...
https://www.spacex.c...nId=koreasat-6a

Scroll to T+0:28 = 5:50pm GMT to watch the orbital insertion burn right near your location ... maybe even see your cities lights in the video

Edited by triplemon, 11 November 2024 - 04:44 PM.

[BASTP]

There was a SpaceX launch today, November 11, 12:22pm ET ...
https://www.spacex.c...nId=koreasat-6a

Scroll to T+0:28 = 5:50pm GMT to watch the orbital insertion burn right near your location ... maybe even see your cities lights in the video

YES! This is the one. We clearly saw the ejections from the boost at this exact time, and the orientation corresponds to our location; looking towards the East. Amazing!

This was a very bright object, and the plume was enormous (looked even bigger than the Moon to me), and seemed to have lasted for a long time. In the video they speak of a 1 min burn. From where we were, it actually started burning high in the Sky and disappeared over the tree covered horizon still burning, which makes sense now looking at the trajectory, zooming past Sao Tomé onto Gabon.

What a time to be alive!

Thank you so much, triplemon for your insights, and greetings form the Equator!