Satellites Across the Moon ?

In article ,
David Nakamoto wrote:

But six crossing the Moon in a two hour period, one sighting with three
flying in formation, and the last with a large (larger than the black
disk by about five times the diameter of the disk) rectangular object
attached?

These last two don't sound like weather balloons to me. A simple
calculation using the assumed distance (150 miles) angular size (10
to 25 arc-seconds) and the tangent function gives a size of around 10
yards or less. This sounds reasonable for a large telecommunications
satellite or reconnaissance one.

.....except that any satellite in LEO moves at a speed of about 8 km/s.
Thus such a satellite would move a distance equal to its own size
in just 1/800 second or less. And it would move across the lunar
disk in about 1/5 second. Are those figures compatible with the
observations?

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----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://www.stjarnhimlen.se/
http://home.tiscali.se/pausch/

"David Nakamoto" wrote in
:


The last was a disk on which was attached a large retangularly shaped
object.


Like the one at the bottom of this page?
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/earth/featur...spotlight.html

"Paul Schlyter" wrote in message
...
In article ,
David Nakamoto wrote:

But six crossing the Moon in a two hour period, one sighting with three
flying in formation, and the last with a large (larger than the black
disk by about five times the diameter of the disk) rectangular object
attached?

These last two don't sound like weather balloons to me. A simple
calculation using the assumed distance (150 miles) angular size (10
to 25 arc-seconds) and the tangent function gives a size of around 10
yards or less. This sounds reasonable for a large telecommunications
satellite or reconnaissance one.

....except that any satellite in LEO moves at a speed of about 8 km/s.
Thus such a satellite would move a distance equal to its own size
in just 1/800 second or less. And it would move across the lunar
disk in about 1/5 second. Are those figures compatible with the
observations?

Hi Paul,

Thanks for bringing that up. I hadn't considered that. If your figures are
correct,
then no; these objects took (guesstimating here) around 8 to 10 seconds to
cross
the face of the Moon. But this does not eliminate the satellite hypothesis
because
they might have been in higher orbits, therefore travelling slower than
low-Earth
orbit ones, with a corresponding increase in size to make up for the longer
distance
from the observer.

In particular, the second to last sighting consisted of three flying in a
triangular formation,
and the last of a roughly circular disk with a rectangular thing hanging
only from one side.

Next time, and every time, I'm attaching a recorder to my video camera ! ! !

--- Dave

"GD" wrote in message
3.254...
"David Nakamoto" wrote in
:


The last was a disk on which was attached a large retangularly shaped
object.


Like the one at the bottom of this page?
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/earth/featur...spotlight.html

Nope. As I wrote before, this last one had a rectangular object
attached to it that was four to five times larger than the circular portion.
No way it could have been a weather balloon give that size disparity I
should think; the payload cannot be significantly larger than the balloon.

-- Dave

In article ,
David Nakamoto wrote:
"Paul Schlyter" wrote in message
...
In article ,
David Nakamoto wrote:

But six crossing the Moon in a two hour period, one sighting with three
flying in formation, and the last with a large (larger than the black
disk by about five times the diameter of the disk) rectangular object
attached?

These last two don't sound like weather balloons to me. A simple
calculation using the assumed distance (150 miles) angular size (10
to 25 arc-seconds) and the tangent function gives a size of around 10
yards or less. This sounds reasonable for a large telecommunications
satellite or reconnaissance one.

....except that any satellite in LEO moves at a speed of about 8 km/s.
Thus such a satellite would move a distance equal to its own size
in just 1/800 second or less. And it would move across the lunar
disk in about 1/5 second. Are those figures compatible with the
observations?

Hi Paul,

Thanks for bringing that up. I hadn't considered that. If your figures are
correct,
then no; these objects took (guesstimating here) around 8 to 10 seconds to
cross
the face of the Moon. But this does not eliminate the satellite hypothesis
because
they might have been in higher orbits, therefore travelling slower than
low-Earth
orbit ones, with a corresponding increase in size to make up for the longer
distance
from the observer.

The satellite would have to be some 20-30 times more distant to move
across the lunar disk in 8-10 seconds. Thus, its size would have to
be not 10 years but some 200-300 yards, to match the figure for apparent
size.

Also, there are few satellites at that distance from the Earth. The
vast majority of Earth satellites move in LEO. The second most common
case is in geostationary orbits, some 150 times more distant than those
150 miles you mentioned earlier. And the third most common case is
I believe the GPS satellite constellation, some 100 times more distant
than those 150 miles.

But there are not many satellites moving some 20-30 times as far away
as 150 miles.


In particular, the second to last sighting consisted of three flying in a
triangular formation,
and the last of a roughly circular disk with a rectangular thing hanging
only from one side.

Next time, and every time, I'm attaching a recorder to my video camera ! ! !

--- Dave




--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://www.stjarnhimlen.se/
http://home.tiscali.se/pausch/

"David Nakamoto" wrote in message ...

In a few weeks, you might try http://www.ufocenter.com/ for other
non-amateur-astronomy reporters. The site owner reviews received
reports before posting them a few weeks later.

The site collects online "odd things in the sky" reports from the
non-astronomical public that can be filtered by date and location. I
guess that something "1/2 the size of the crater Copernicus" should
have been visible to naked-eye observers.

I'm not endorsing the existence of ETs or UFOs. To me the site is a
just another useful data source, authored by less experienced, and
therefore less credible, observers.

"David Nakamoto" wrote in message
...
In particular, the second to last sighting consisted of three flying in a
triangular formation,
and the last of a roughly circular disk with a rectangular thing hanging
only from one side.

What you describe fits what I have seen more than just a few times with
helium-filled Mylar balloons. (except for the last one)

For 17 years here, I lived near Busch Gardens and saw my share of such
crossings of the moon and the sun (when doing both filtered observing and
eyepiece projection). I've seen the "three in formation" bit at least twice.
(They are tied together). My only guess for the last of your observation is
a cardboard placard attached to the balloon.

Also, it occurs to me that it seems more likely for a bunch of
(accidentally?) released balloons from somewhat nearby to catch the same air
currents to pass in front of the moon, than for that many similar looking
satellites to be in such similar orbits.

Clear Skies,
Craig in Tampa