Barium release or satellite boost?

Around 8:57 PM EDT, 15 degrees due east from Arcturus I saw a fairly
bright cloud-like glow drifting slowly northeast. It wasn't a cloud,
it was perfectly clear otherwise. The glow had a spiked point that
stayed farly much intact until I lost it after Moonrise. It was about
30' in size when first observed & expanded to about 1 degree before
fading.

This was observed from Central Kentucky around 37 34 North & 84 36
West. Did anybody else catch this?

Jack Metcalfe

Jack L. Metcalfe wrote:

Around 8:57 PM EDT, 15 degrees due east from Arcturus I saw a fairly
bright cloud-like glow drifting slowly northeast. It wasn't a cloud,
it was perfectly clear otherwise. The glow had a spiked point that
stayed farly much intact until I lost it after Moonrise. It was about
30' in size when first observed & expanded to about 1 degree before
fading.

This was observed from Central Kentucky around 37 34 North & 84 36
West. Did anybody else catch this?


Yep - I saw it from my balcony in Toronto (43 40 N, 79 24 E) at
approximately the same time. Due west of the city, and approximately 30
degrees above the horizon. I couldn't see what it was near due to the light
polution. It was moving directly overhead - west to east - over a period of
about 10 minutes.

From this angle it looked like a fairly bright horizontal line surrounded
by a diffuse scatter. It looked like the scatter was more pronounced on the
right (north) and that there was a point to the south.


Jack Metcalfe

Trevor Oke

Here is what I observed tonight (8/31/04): Location: upstate NY 43° 14' N
75° 25' W I was leaving my parents house around 9pm, when I just happen to
look up and noticed a nebulous object in the wSW sky about 40-50degrees up.
I quickly got out the telescope and WAS able to view it. (The telescope is
an 8" f/4 reflector, eyepiece used was a 25mm). Did not spend to much time
setting up the scope(has an equitorial mount so it should have been
alighned), just sent it on a semi level surface and looked for it, so I
cannot give you any sort of cooridinates. The object was in fact TWO objects
moving quite rapidly(in my opinion) at first in relation to the stars. The
objects were moving in unison(and appeared to have quite a large distance
between them. In the eypiece if I placed the first object on the lower edge
if the view, the second would be about 3/4's of the way up and slightly to
one side and the begingings of the tail would be about 9/10 up from the
bottom), and the tail trailed the second object and dissipated tward the
south. the objects were quite bright at first, and triled off in intensity
as the sighting went on. The appeard to be moving tward the area between
cassiopeia and pegasus. I was able to observe the objects in the telescope
for about 45 minutes before one was to faint to see (the one closest to the
tail), and continued viewing the remaining one in till it to became to fain
to observe somewhere around the constellation Draco's Etamin. (I could be
wrong on the constelations it was hard to tell) I wish I had a digital
camera setup for my scope to photograph it. The tail faided from view about
30-40 minutes into the sighting, and the objects slowed significantly
(relative to the stars) as time passed. Any one have any thoughts on what it
was??

"Jack L. Metcalfe" wrote in message
...
Around 8:57 PM EDT, 15 degrees due east from Arcturus I saw a fairly
bright cloud-like glow drifting slowly northeast. It wasn't a cloud,
it was perfectly clear otherwise. The glow had a spiked point that
stayed farly much intact until I lost it after Moonrise. It was about
30' in size when first observed & expanded to about 1 degree before
fading.

This was observed from Central Kentucky around 37 34 North & 84 36
West. Did anybody else catch this?

This was related to this evening's launch of NROL-1 from Cape Canaveral, on
an Atlas 2AS rocket. Spaceflight Now has the ground track:

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/atlas/...0824track.html

The cloud visible over North America was the result of the Centaur's venting
of excess propellant.

I posted my observation report to SeeSat-L:

http://satobs.org/seesat/Aug-2004/0341.html

As have several other observers:

http://satobs.org/seesat/Aug-2004/0335.html

http://satobs.org/seesat/Aug-2004/0336.html

http://satobs.org/seesat/Aug-2004/0339.html

Ted Molczan

The generated charts by www.heavens-above.com showed that they were the
Cosmos 660 rocket and the Okean O rocket 31 seconds behind and travelling
within a few degrees of each other.

I also coincidently caught this strange very slowly moving bright nebulosity
in NYC, grabbed my binoculars and followed it for a while. It had a central
stalk with curved forward sweeping wings on top and back sweeping curved
wings on the bottom. It also flashed at the top(?) end. I checked Heavens
Above and found 2 orbiting rockets that had close starting trajectories in
time and coordinates. I tracked the object through Draco near Etamin as you
indicated. I had noticed that the shape changed, now looking similar to a
fanning comet tail. It remained in the Draco head area and continues to
fade. Your report with the telescope through the eyepiece confirms that it
was two objects. I had taken my eye off it occasionally and has not seen it
split. That explains the change in shape.


"Lou" wrote in message
...
Here is what I observed tonight (8/31/04): Location: upstate NY 43° 14' N
75° 25' W I was leaving my parents house around 9pm, when I just happen to
look up and noticed a nebulous object in the wSW sky about 40-50degrees
up.
I quickly got out the telescope and WAS able to view it. (The telescope is
an 8" f/4 reflector, eyepiece used was a 25mm). Did not spend to much time
setting up the scope(has an equitorial mount so it should have been
alighned), just sent it on a semi level surface and looked for it, so I
cannot give you any sort of cooridinates. The object was in fact TWO
objects
moving quite rapidly(in my opinion) at first in relation to the stars. The
objects were moving in unison(and appeared to have quite a large distance
between them. In the eypiece if I placed the first object on the lower
edge
if the view, the second would be about 3/4's of the way up and slightly to
one side and the begingings of the tail would be about 9/10 up from the
bottom), and the tail trailed the second object and dissipated tward the
south. the objects were quite bright at first, and triled off in intensity
as the sighting went on. The appeard to be moving tward the area between
cassiopeia and pegasus. I was able to observe the objects in the telescope
for about 45 minutes before one was to faint to see (the one closest to
the
tail), and continued viewing the remaining one in till it to became to
fain
to observe somewhere around the constellation Draco's Etamin. (I could be
wrong on the constelations it was hard to tell) I wish I had a digital
camera setup for my scope to photograph it. The tail faided from view
about
30-40 minutes into the sighting, and the objects slowed significantly
(relative to the stars) as time passed. Any one have any thoughts on what
it
was??

Ted,

That makes more sense than the rocket remnants I pointed to.

Thanks

"Ted Molczan" wrote in message
.cable.rogers.com...
"Jack L. Metcalfe" wrote in message
...
Around 8:57 PM EDT, 15 degrees due east from Arcturus I saw a fairly
bright cloud-like glow drifting slowly northeast. It wasn't a cloud,
it was perfectly clear otherwise. The glow had a spiked point that
stayed farly much intact until I lost it after Moonrise. It was about
30' in size when first observed & expanded to about 1 degree before
fading.

This was observed from Central Kentucky around 37 34 North & 84 36
West. Did anybody else catch this?

This was related to this evening's launch of NROL-1 from Cape Canaveral,
on
an Atlas 2AS rocket. Spaceflight Now has the ground track:

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/atlas/...0824track.html

The cloud visible over North America was the result of the Centaur's
venting
of excess propellant.

I posted my observation report to SeeSat-L:

http://satobs.org/seesat/Aug-2004/0341.html

As have several other observers:

http://satobs.org/seesat/Aug-2004/0335.html

http://satobs.org/seesat/Aug-2004/0336.html

http://satobs.org/seesat/Aug-2004/0339.html

Ted Molczan