Six tonight

I haven't really went outside to look for satellites since Nov 14th. Tonight was tough as it was windy and with the wind came the clouds. Luckily it wasn't a giant sheet, but lots of wispy clouds that moved across the sky quickly, which has its disadvantages in itself. It plays tricks on the mind and make one think that the stars are moving when it is actually the clouds that are moving. So, one has to be prepared to observe the surrounding stars to see if that object is moving relative to other nearby stars. Since I'm starting to hit alot of repeats, I'm going to try to remember to highlight those that are being seen for the first time.

Here's the time-line for evening of:
Date: 22-Nov-2010 Monday

6:39 PM - Lacrosse 5 Rocket - 2.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2005-016-B
This is only my second sighting of Titan IV-B rocket which launched Lacrosse 5, an NRO recon satellite. My first sighting was on Oct 4 2010.

6:43 PM - Lacrosse 4 - 2.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2000-047-A
This is only my second sighting of Lacrosse 4. My first sighting was on Sept 17 2010 and was the 7th object I had seen to that date. Tonight, it was the 264th.

6:58 PM - COSMO-SkyMed 2 - 3.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-059-A
This is my 4th sighting of COSMO-SkyMed 2, the Italian earth observation satellite.

7:02 PM - Cosmos 2242 Rocket - 3.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1993-024-B
This is my first sighting of this Tsyklon-3 rocket which was used to launch Kosmos 2242, a Russian Tselina-R ELINT satellite. The Tselina-R model is an updated version of the Tselina-D satellite that I see quite frequenly. There are currently only four Tselina-R satellites in orbit.

7:09 PM - Cosmos 1500 - 3.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1983-099-A
This is my first sighting of Kosmos 1500 which was launched in 1983. This satellite is a Russian oceanography (Okean means ocean in Russian) satellite from the Okean-OE series. Only two satellites of this particular model were ever put into orbit. The other was Kosmos 1602 launched in 1984. Both were launched into space using a Tsyklon-3 rocket.

7:14 PM - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 2.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
This is my 20th sighting of this old faithful Zenit-2 rocket which put a Russian Resurs-O1 earth observation satellite and 5 others into space in 1998.