ISS OVER MY HOMETOWN

ISS over carolina from the farm of a friend Hennie Veldman. Startrail composite. Just for the fun.

ISS IN CORVI

A couple of minutes later a very, very bright ISS also passing through corvi. Absolutely stunning and majestic pass. utc 17:06:23 straight through corvi.

Looking for ATEX but found Lacrosse 2 91-017A #21147 2

Could not see ATEX , but found this one in the same angle unknown to me.
utc 16:53.04 Canon 20 d 95 mm 13 sec exp star left epsilon curvi end star right of track gamma corvi.













Greg Roberts (Specialist astronomer retired, Cape Town Republic of South Africa ) analyzed image with his specialist software and identified this satellite as follow soon after this publication:
Morning Gerhard
I think ATEX would have been a bit too faint for your system-- it would have been running parallel to the faint parallel lines in your picture - possibly about mag +8. The unknown object was Lacrosse 2 91-017A #21147 at a range of about 1017 km and magnitude about +4.5--could have been brighter. The field of view is 13.30 x 8.77 degrees and the image scale is 60.91 arc sec/pixel. Satellite was moving from left to right, coordinates for trail are start RA 12h03m01s Dec -23d 27'42" (J2000) end RA 12h18m57s Dec -18d 20'08" (J2000) centre of field of view = RA 12h11m24s Dec -19d 13'56" (J2000)
Cheers
Greg

90070 ON TRACK ON TIME

HEAVENSAT Prediction on track on time for 90070 [utc 16:32:35] Canon 20d f5 10 sec 150mm
Centre left sao 155096 and right of track Alpha Hydrae. Will hesitate to express opinion on seconds, but close enough for me.

BREEZE M DEBRIS (junk) PASS DELTA CORVI

CANON 20D 135 MM F5 UTC16:08.45 To the right Delta Corvi and further right Eta Corvi
passing from right up to top left
Satellite kindly id'd by Greg Roberts and Russel Eberst of seesat as the following
NORAD ID: 32480
Int'l Code: 2008-003C
Perigee: 319.7 km
Apogee: 35,625.9 km
Inclination: 46.6°
Period: 630.0 min
Launch date: January 28, 2008

UNKNOWN WHEN LOOKING FOR USA 202

CANON 20D 135 MM 30 SEC EXP F4 AT UTC 16:38.33
STARS DIFFICULT TO ID BUT 5159 AND SAO120004 IS SOMEWHERE THERE AND EL (ESTIMATE) 55 DEG AZ (ESTIMATE) 37 DEG

DMSP B5D2-8 AND SPACE JUNK

ALL IMAGES CANON D20 15 SEC ISO 1600 JPG F4 130 MM LENS
DMSP B5D2-8 ON TIME PER HEAVENSAT PREDICTION












Image: DMSP B5D2-8 passing Kappa Crucis cluster right and major stars Beta Crucis and Gamma Crucis utc 16 h 39:10













An then the unknown from north to south at utc 16 h 40:34 which Ted Molczan identified as space junk

Junk. Specifically, the SL-8 rocket body 79060B / 11427.

CLOUD WATCHING

13 JUNE CLOUDY
14 JUNE CLOUDY
15 JUNE CLOUDY
16 JUNE CLOUDY AND RAIN
17 JUNE OVERCAST AND RAIN
18 JUNE OVERCAST.

NOSS 3-4(A) AND (C) EXACTLY ON TRACK WITH HEAVENSAT PREDICTION SOFTWARE

NOSS 3-4(A) AND (C) on track to HEAVENSAT prediction. Passing through star 4908 with mu2 crucis just right and crux constellation at the right.
Time 16.09.14 utc.
First clear skies in 5 days and happy with this image.
CANON 20 D LENS EF 70-300 F4 ISO 1600 15 SEC EXP. SETTING 70 MM
The edited prediction by Greg Roberts on HEAVENSAT.

OTHER STARS IN MY LIFE

Since it's cold, misty here and no sightings are possible here are some other stars in my life:

Peanut and Flippie in a flying CANIS formation

And Strepies and Sokkies in FELIX formation

CAROLINA OBS 6 JUNE 09

For Greg Roberts to do his magic .........
(70 mm) (2009-06-06) UTC 17:42.32 10 SEC ISO 1600

And voila Ted Molczan did his magic:

Dear Gerhard,
I had a few minutes to use up before going out visiting, so I ran an ID. Your implied your time was UTC, but I believe it is local, so I subtracted 2 h, and found an excellent match to Cosmos 2082 r (90046B / 20625).
Best wishes,
Ted Molczan

And it is a Tselina -2 elint and described here and questions answered here.
"Chaps if you are good you are good, and some are better ......"

Click to enlarge
Ignore the telephone lines below. Right bottom Alpha Canis Minoris. Satellite passing through what I could detect as SAO153687. Image unedited but saved smaller JPG. An image reduction of the above showing more detail

For others
stacked image showing better results than last night. A stacked photo far clearer.
Click to enlarge

DO NOT USE IMAGE STABILIZER WITH LONG B EXPOSURE: THE MANUAL SAYS SO ...

Line up your canon to the estimated RA and Dec. Check your manual focus on 300 mm and then forget to zoom back to 70 mm. Nice piece of sky though. Satellite none. Miles out of line. Anyway the image stacked from 120 images. At 300 mm squigly and unstable. Oh well fine, now for tomorrow night. .. . . .

RESULTS OF IMAGE SEARCH
Images By Gerhard Groenewald (Carolina RSA)
Identification and Analysis by Greg Roberts (Cape Town RSA)
IOD calculation by Mike Mc'Cants (Texas USA)

06829A                                                 279 X 12152 km
1 90070U 06829A   09152.58419386  .00006324  00000-0  58477-3 0    04
2 90070  27.3012 290.4939 4713652 198.3652 136.3366  6.14526564    08
Arc 20090401.15-0601.69 WRMS resid 0.074 totl 0.035 xtrk

SEARCHING FOR UNKNOWN 061125 IMAGES BY G GROENEWALD AND ID BY GREG ROBERTS REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

SOFTWARE = HEAVENSAT
REPORTED TO SEESAT
Prediction for unknown 061125 tonight were 2006-829A 90070 74 3.6 18:26:50 2009.06.01 18:53:05 2009.06.01 51.6 26.2
Setup Canon20d with 60 mm macro with sequential shots ISO 1600 13 sec at F2.8. reduced images to 800x466 from larger images. The major star center top left is Alpha -1 Librae el 37.442 az 90.735 mag 5.2 AND ITS twin Alpha -2 Librae el 37.415 az 90.808 mag 2,8. At no stage could I observe satellites but photo inspection revealed a plethora of satellites passing. The target was to photograph Unknown 061125. Nevertheless the following was a discovery of satellites from 18h24.16 to 18h 39.42. Captured unknown 61125 at 18 h 39.22

All images at same angle

So i did the easy part and the Greg Roberts the spysat master did the following identifications

Morning Gerhard
Thanks for the info. I downloaded the images and have the following to report/comment:Field of view 20.34 x 13.32 degrees, images tilted about -6 degrees with respect to horizon.
As to identifications:
Image 18:24:16 SAST SL-14R/B #16987 86074B range 1027 kms, predicted mag +3.3
Image 18:34:58 SAST Bottom streak is Atlas Centaur rocket 81050B #12497 mag +6.2 range 4846 kms
Trail top image looks like 90070 running about 6 minutes late, range ~ 1965 Kms,mag +4.8
Image 18:37:50 SAST - called unknown 061125 - Top trail is Globalstar MO53 99043D, #25886,mag +5.4,
range 2060 kms - bottom trail SK-8 R/B 75074B #08073, mag +5.4, range 1685 kms
Image 18:39:42 SAST - Atlas Centaur rocket 80087B #12069, range 2670 kms, mag +4.9
These are predicted magnitudes.
The interestesting bit is 90070 apparently running about 6 minutes late. This has a very low perigee- around 230 km if memory correct. I see that it was last observed on day 101 - which is around 11 April so your observation at least indicates how late it will be running. Using the INT element set it was predicted around 16:29:08 UT - NOW if I had some clear weather this would be very useful info but maybe some of the other observers will be able to catch it so the elements could be updated. How accurate do you estimate are the times you gave - is 18:34:58 SAST the beginning or end of exposure and you said you were using 10 second exposures. Even with a time uncertainty of a few seconds I think Mike/Ted will be able to use your observation to close in on 90070. (hint:-)) I did an approx position determination and get the following:
Start of trail RA 15h05m49s Dec -18d56'46" (J2000)
End of trail RA 15h11m36s Dec -18d54'47"

IMAGE GUIDE SHOWING POSITION OF ALPHA -1 & -2 LIBRAE


At 18h 24.16 SL-14R/B #16987 86074B range 1027 kms, predicted mag +3.3And then at 18h 34.58 Bottom streak is Atlas Centaur rocket 81050B #12497 mag +6.2 range 4846 kms AND Trail top image looks like 90070 running about 6 minutes late, range ~ 1965 Kms,mag +4.8
And then at 18h 37.50 Image 18:37:50 SAST - called unknown 061125 - Top trail is Globalstar MO53 99043D,#25886,mag +5.4, range 2060 kms - bottom trail SK-8 R/B 75074B #08073, mag +5.4, range 1685 kms
and finally at 18 h 39.42 Image 18:39:42 SAST - Atlas Centaur rocket 80087B z12069, range 2670 kms, mag +4.9
Fairly hectic piece of sky !

LACROSSE 4 SPY SATELLITE IMAGE REDUCTIONS BY GREG ROBERTS FROM IMAGES BY GERHARD GROENEWALD

lat:26°04'01.5"S, lon:30°07'01.6"E Observer time zone:UTC+2.0 satellite Lacrosse 4 int. des 2000-047A el. 66 2.9 rise 18:23:54 set 18:38:04 CANON 20D 28 MM Time taken 18.31.26 20 s exposure F5 ISO 1600 LEFT MAJOR STAR Alpha Canis Majoris and RIGHT Alpha Canis minoris LACROSSE 4 Orange streak from right below just entering field of view with a slight flare. Prediction by Heavensat ver 2.17 From this data available Greg Roberts member of seesat made the following findings: centre of field of view RA 07h48m16s Dec -07d 48' 28"( I bet you won’t get that right again by accident- I did not believe that the RA and Dec would have essentially the same digits but checked it in another astrometry program and its correct!) Field of view 43.38 x 28.94 degrees pixel size 244.00075 arc sec/pixel on the 2.5x reduced image so the true scale is 99".18 arc sec/pixel in raw format. The position of the end of Lacrosse 4 trail is RA 07h59m08s Dec +10d 42'04".Magnitude at brightest +3.3 and at end of trail +5.8 ( wouldn’t put too much faith in the magnitudes) limiting magnitude +7. Follow discussion at seesat