Friday, September 17, 2010

Lacrosse 4 - sighted

I finally nabbed a glimpse of the Lacrosse 4 reconnaissance satellite this evening at 8:51pm. I only caught the last 15 seconds of it since it seemed a little early (but then again, 1) who's to say the clock on our oven is correct -and- 2) the sites have 'projections' of when they will be at their peak magnitude and their position in the sky.

I had a few more on my list, but my neighbors a few houses down who had their backyard lights on (which wasn't a problem really since I could block those with a postit note while blocking the BRIGHT moon with the outdoor umbrella), decided to get out their 1 million watt halogen light, which I heard they got for $5 at a garage sale (acoustics at night are amazing as well). Oh, and they shined it directly in my direction. They possibly even made a comment that they were amazed to be able to see me. I used my post-it briefly to block that madness, but after 3 minutes, I realized it was for naught. My little square postit (and the rest of the backyard) were no match for 1 million candles. I finished my High Life Light and came back inside. Most of the others I had planned were peaking in the east anyways so it would have been difficult to see them from my backyard which faces west. If I went to the front of my house, I would be dealing with no less than 15 orange streetlamps which would ensure that I my eyes would never adjust enough to see jack squat.

Oh well, I saw the L4, and that was the goal of the evening. Check!

Maybe I'll try again later this evening if the neighbors down the street decide to call it (and their 1M candle watt lamp) an evening.

(Note: the International Designation Code for the Lacrosse 4 satellite is 2000-047A)


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Updated June 21 2011 to put the sightings in my standard template format

Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 17-Sep-2010 Friday


8:51 PM - Name: Lacrosse 4 - Magnitude: 2.0
Int'l Designator: 2000-047-A

2 comments:

Bald Man Tom said...

You've seriously piqued my interest. I'm going to have to sit out with you some night. Too many lights here in the burbs...

Darrin said...

Sho' nuff dude! Anytime!! (as long as there are not clouds and my neighbors don't have their desk lights on)