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 !