SpaceBanter.com - View Single Post - help me identify objects seen last night?

**Flyguy** · April 2nd 09, 03:35 AM posted to sci.astro.satellites.visual-observe

wrote:

Can you someone help identify what I saw last night? I am near Ottawa,
Canada, (northeastern NA).
At 9:03PM we saw the ISS passing by, directly overheard heading East/
SE. Around 9:04 another object followed, and around 9:05 yet another
one, all in similar trajectories. These two were much dimmer.

The Space Shuttle was supposed to come before the ISS, we never saw it
as we were likely looking too low in the sky. Soyuz was supposed to go
by at 9:19, so it was not it. What were the mistery objects around
9:04 and 9:05PM?

Thanks!

You didn't give the date of your sitings. If it was on the evening of
Friday March-27, one of the other objects could have been the ISS tool
bag which was accidentally lost by an astronaut doing an EVA on a
previous Shuttle mission last fall. This 'satellite' is currently
trailing the ISS by about 5-minutes. It's brightness is close to the
limit of vision with the unaided eye (no binoculars) but you could have
seen it if the sky was very clear and dark. I'm not sure about the
second object. It may have been the Russian 'Progress' cargo spacecraft
which was launched to the ISS in February. It might still be in a
similar orbit to the ISS. If you give us some more details, it would
help to identify your UFO's.
BTW, There actually wasn't any pass of the ISS *directly* over Ottawa
last week. The highest one was on Friday evening March-27, which reached
a maximum altitude of 69-deg above the North-Northeast horizon at
9:05pm-EDT. That's why I chose that pass in answering your post. How
sure are you about the times of these sitings?