New User - Weirdest Sats or Objects You Have Observed?

In article ,
wrote:

I'm new to this newsgroup

Welcome!

Could anyone share the most interesting or unusual sat-type things they have
seen in their experiences tracking? You know, bizarre flares, etc.?

Well, last night I saw a NOSS trio for the first time. That would have
stopped me in my tracks had I not been expecting it. ;-)

Iridium flares are a definite "what the hell was that??!" experience.

But the weirdest satellite I've ever seen was the Tethered Satellite
System that broke (was cut?) loose from the Shuttle some years ago.
Paul Maley has photos of it he

http://www.eclipsetours.com/sat/tether.html

With things in the sky usually being round, seeing a long straight
vertical line gliding through the sky was *really* weird!


Patty

In article ,
wrote:

I'm new to this newsgroup

Welcome!

Could anyone share the most interesting or unusual sat-type things they have
seen in their experiences tracking? You know, bizarre flares, etc.?

Well, last night I saw a NOSS trio for the first time. That would have
stopped me in my tracks had I not been expecting it. ;-)

Iridium flares are a definite "what the hell was that??!" experience.

But the weirdest satellite I've ever seen was the Tethered Satellite
System that broke (was cut?) loose from the Shuttle some years ago.
Paul Maley has photos of it he

http://www.eclipsetours.com/sat/tether.html

With things in the sky usually being round, seeing a long straight
vertical line gliding through the sky was *really* weird!


Patty

wrote:

Could anyone share the most interesting or unusual sat-type things they have
seen in their experiences tracking? You know, bizarre flares, etc.?

Ajisai (EGP), the "disco ball." It's a sphere two meters in
diameter and covered by laser retroreflectors and flat mirrors.
It flashes rapidly. Seen through binoculars, it seems to
jitter around rather than move smoothly.

--Bill Thompson

wrote:

Could anyone share the most interesting or unusual sat-type things they have
seen in their experiences tracking? You know, bizarre flares, etc.?

Ajisai (EGP), the "disco ball." It's a sphere two meters in
diameter and covered by laser retroreflectors and flat mirrors.
It flashes rapidly. Seen through binoculars, it seems to
jitter around rather than move smoothly.

--Bill Thompson

Wow, thanks for those interesting bits! What as the "NOSS Trio"?

"Patty Winter" wrote in message
...
In article ,
wrote:

I'm new to this newsgroup

Welcome!

Could anyone share the most interesting or unusual sat-type things they
have
seen in their experiences tracking? You know, bizarre flares, etc.?

Well, last night I saw a NOSS trio for the first time. That would have
stopped me in my tracks had I not been expecting it. ;-)

Iridium flares are a definite "what the hell was that??!" experience.

But the weirdest satellite I've ever seen was the Tethered Satellite
System that broke (was cut?) loose from the Shuttle some years ago.
Paul Maley has photos of it he

http://www.eclipsetours.com/sat/tether.html

With things in the sky usually being round, seeing a long straight
vertical line gliding through the sky was *really* weird!


Patty

Wow, thanks for those interesting bits! What as the "NOSS Trio"?

"Patty Winter" wrote in message
...
In article ,
wrote:

I'm new to this newsgroup

Welcome!

Could anyone share the most interesting or unusual sat-type things they
have
seen in their experiences tracking? You know, bizarre flares, etc.?

Well, last night I saw a NOSS trio for the first time. That would have
stopped me in my tracks had I not been expecting it. ;-)

Iridium flares are a definite "what the hell was that??!" experience.

But the weirdest satellite I've ever seen was the Tethered Satellite
System that broke (was cut?) loose from the Shuttle some years ago.
Paul Maley has photos of it he

http://www.eclipsetours.com/sat/tether.html

With things in the sky usually being round, seeing a long straight
vertical line gliding through the sky was *really* weird!


Patty

Hey, c'mon everyone--Bill and I aren't the only ones who have
seen weird satellites! Who else has seen something interesting--
either one we've mentioned or a different one?


Patty

Hey, c'mon everyone--Bill and I aren't the only ones who have
seen weird satellites! Who else has seen something interesting--
either one we've mentioned or a different one?


Patty

says...

Hey, c'mon everyone--Bill and I aren't the only ones who have
seen weird satellites! Who else has seen something interesting--

I must echo Patty that the Tethered Satellite System in 1996 was
the weirdest, like a fluorescent light crossing the sky. That
was partly what got me started watching satellites. I'll add
the following:

23973 96-029F TiPS (current tethered system, telescope required)
19460 88-078A USA 32 (* note below)
21949 92-023A USA 81 (* note below)
16908 86-061A EGP/Ajisai (echo Bill; and it's easy to see with binocs)

* USA 32 and USA 81 are apparently identical objects that on many of
their passes (as seen from here at least) for a few seconds brighten
a lot and flash madly -- such that Mike McCants calls it "sparkling".
This sparkling is almost always visible without magnification but
of course is better with binocs or telescope. Most of a pass they
are pretty faint with regular flashing every 2 or 3 seconds.

There are a number of other objects that flash rapidly at least
from time to time; some of the best are tumbling (out of service)
Iridiums, whose repeated flashes, some as fast as once per second,
can be almost as bright as regular Iridium flares. See a recent
SeeSat-L message from Daniel Deak (to whose list I'd add SCD 2 and
FAST):

http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Jul-2003/0025.html

Seeing any of the three NOSS 2 trios without binoculars is quite
an odd sight -- a triangle of slow-moving satellites crossing
the sky at a fairly slow pace. My experience is that the best
passes here are southbound evening passes during the summer.
Much of the year, including other summer passes, they can be
very faint, hard to find even with binoculars.

Two other types of things I want to mention a

(1) Centaur stage fuel ventings, which create a temporary artificial
nebula that can be seen without magnification. I've seen two of
them. Some people saw one of these from the Atlas Centaur launch
the other day. There are other things similar to this, including
some Delta and Ariane launches, I believe.

(2) Flaring geosats, including close pairs visible without
magnification. Around the equinoxes, with the optimum dates
depending upon your latitude, many operational 3-axis stabilized
geostationary satellites can brighten by up to ten magnitudes
(!!) for a little while before and after entering the Earth's
shadow. It is quite something to see without magnification a
pair of +3 "stars" that turn out to be standing still while the
real stars move past them (as confirmed by observing them with
binoculars or telescope). Here's a SeeSat-L message of mine
about this phenomenon:

http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Feb-2003/0461.html

Ed Cannon - - Austin, Texas, USA
(Remove "donotspam".)
http://wnt.cc.utexas.edu/~ecannon/satellite.htm

says...

Hey, c'mon everyone--Bill and I aren't the only ones who have
seen weird satellites! Who else has seen something interesting--

I must echo Patty that the Tethered Satellite System in 1996 was
the weirdest, like a fluorescent light crossing the sky. That
was partly what got me started watching satellites. I'll add
the following:

23973 96-029F TiPS (current tethered system, telescope required)
19460 88-078A USA 32 (* note below)
21949 92-023A USA 81 (* note below)
16908 86-061A EGP/Ajisai (echo Bill; and it's easy to see with binocs)

* USA 32 and USA 81 are apparently identical objects that on many of
their passes (as seen from here at least) for a few seconds brighten
a lot and flash madly -- such that Mike McCants calls it "sparkling".
This sparkling is almost always visible without magnification but
of course is better with binocs or telescope. Most of a pass they
are pretty faint with regular flashing every 2 or 3 seconds.

There are a number of other objects that flash rapidly at least
from time to time; some of the best are tumbling (out of service)
Iridiums, whose repeated flashes, some as fast as once per second,
can be almost as bright as regular Iridium flares. See a recent
SeeSat-L message from Daniel Deak (to whose list I'd add SCD 2 and
FAST):

http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Jul-2003/0025.html

Seeing any of the three NOSS 2 trios without binoculars is quite
an odd sight -- a triangle of slow-moving satellites crossing
the sky at a fairly slow pace. My experience is that the best
passes here are southbound evening passes during the summer.
Much of the year, including other summer passes, they can be
very faint, hard to find even with binoculars.

Two other types of things I want to mention a

(1) Centaur stage fuel ventings, which create a temporary artificial
nebula that can be seen without magnification. I've seen two of
them. Some people saw one of these from the Atlas Centaur launch
the other day. There are other things similar to this, including
some Delta and Ariane launches, I believe.

(2) Flaring geosats, including close pairs visible without
magnification. Around the equinoxes, with the optimum dates
depending upon your latitude, many operational 3-axis stabilized
geostationary satellites can brighten by up to ten magnitudes
(!!) for a little while before and after entering the Earth's
shadow. It is quite something to see without magnification a
pair of +3 "stars" that turn out to be standing still while the
real stars move past them (as confirmed by observing them with
binoculars or telescope). Here's a SeeSat-L message of mine
about this phenomenon:

http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Feb-2003/0461.html

Ed Cannon - - Austin, Texas, USA
(Remove "donotspam".)
http://wnt.cc.utexas.edu/~ecannon/satellite.htm