It took me 2 days to enter in Friday's near record breaking session. However, I went and set a record on Saturday night. In all honesty, I should have obliterated my record as I had 3 pages of satellites to spot and a full 2 hours to do it. The first hour was gang-busters. There periods where I would be trying to spot 5 or 6 satellites in a 2 minute period. It gets tricky because you need to spot them as quickly as possible in order to move to the next one.
However, the last whole hour was a bust (except for ONE satellite and 2 shooting stars). I had the same problem sometimes in the summer as well. You get to that last half hour and things are mostly in the west and despite that the web pages saying the magnitude should be fairly visible, I come away without seeing most of them. It can be kinda frustrating.
Anyways, all in all I saw 27 objects in one session. A NEW RECORD!!! I was concerned that I had only tied my record from Oct 8 2010 again since 2 of the objects were shooting stars, however after looking at that session, I had one shooting star which means I saw 24 satellite. This evening I saw 25 satellite and 2 shooting stars. I also managed to nab a glimpse of an object which was launched last week: ATV 2, a European ISS supply craft, launched on Feb 16 2011 and is currently on its way to the ISS. Cool! I also passed the 400 objects mark this evening and this good session this evening gets me a good push towards the excellent 500 objects mark.
Here's the time-line for the evening of:
Date: 19-Feb-2011 Saturday
7:05 PM - Name: Cosmos 1154 Rocket - Magnitude: 3.0
Int'l Designator: 1980-008-B
This is my second sighting of this Vostok-2M rocket which launched the Russian Tselina-D ELINT satellite Kosmos 1154.
7:08 PM - Name: Tansuo 1 LM2r - Magnitude: 2.9
Int'l Designator: 2004-012-C
This is my eleventh sighting of this Long March 2C rocket body. This rocket was used to launch Tansuo 1, a Chinese stereo imaging satellite.
7:13 PM - Name: COSMOS 2251 DEB - Magnitude: 5.7
Int'l Designator: 1993-036-BEP
This is my first sighting of this piece of debris from Cosmos 2251. February 10 2009 marked the first time two intact satellites had a major collision. Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 collided. This caused a significant amount of debris (> 500 pieces), much of which is still floating around and probably will be for a long time. Read a news story about it here.
7:13 PM - Name: MOS 1-A Rocket - Magnitude: 3.6
Int'l Designator: 1987-018-B
This is my first sighting of this Japanese N2 rocket body. The N2 was a derivative of the American Delta rocket. It was used 8 times between 1981 and 1987, all successful, before being replaced by the H-1 which had all Japanese upper stages. This particular rocket was used to launch Japan's first earth observation satellite, MOS-1 (Marine Observation Satellite).
7:14 PM - Name: Cosmos 1184 Rocket - Magnitude: 3.4
Int'l Designator: 1980-044-B
This is my second sighting of this Vostok-2M rocket. It was used to launch the Russian Tselina-D ELINT satellite Kosmos 1184.
7:15 PM - Name: COSMO-SkyMed 1 - Magnitude: 3.2
Int'l Designator: 2007-023-A
This is my twelfth sighting of COSMO-SkyMed 1, Italian earth observation satellite.
7:20 PM - Name: Cosmos 1943 - Magnitude: 3.2
Int'l Designator: 1988-039-A
This is my first sighting of Cosmos 1943, a Russian Tselina-2 ELINT satellite. It was launched in 1988 using a Zenit-2 rocket.
7:23 PM - Name: Cosmos 2263 Rocket - Magnitude: 3.4
Int'l Designator: 1993-059-B
This is my second sighting of this Zenit-2 rocket which was used to put the Russian Tselina-2 ELINT satellite Kosmos 2263 into orbit.
7:28 PM - Name: Cosmos 823 Rocket - Magnitude: 4.8
Int'l Designator: 1976-051-B
Number 400!!! This is my first sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket. This rocket was used to put a Russian Zaliv navigation satellite into orbit in 1976.
7:32 PM - Name: Amazns BrzTank - Magnitude: 4.1
Int'l Designator: 2004-031-C
This is my first sighting of this Briz-M upper stage. It was part of a Proton-M rocket which launched the Amazonas 1 satellite. Amazonas 1 is part of the Hispasat group of Spanish communications satellites.
7:33 PM - Name: Cosmos 2315 Rocket - Magnitude: 4.0
Int'l Designator: 1995-032-B
This is my first sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket. This particular rocket was used to put a Russian Nadezhda satellite, which is part of a civilian navigation system.
7:35 PM - Name: Cosmos 540 Rocket - Magnitude: 3.4
Int'l Designator: 1972-104-B
This is my second sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket which was used to put a Russian Strela-2M military communication Kosmos 540 on Christmas Day in 1972.
7:37 PM - Name: Cosmos 1515 Rocket - Magnitude: 3.8
Int'l Designator: 1983-122-B
This is my first sighting of this Tsyklon-3 rocket which was used to launch the Russian Tselina-D ELINT satellite Cosmos 1515 in 1983.
7:39 PM - Name: Cosmos 1452 Rocket - Magnitude: 3.9
Int'l Designator: 1983-031-B
This is my third sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket which was used to launch the Russian Strela-2M military communications satellite Kosmos 1452.
7:40 PM - Name: Cosmos 1346 - Magnitude: 3.7
Int'l Designator: 1982-027-A
This is my second sighting of Kosmos 1346, a Russian Tselina-D ELINT satellite that was launched using a Vostok-2M rocket in 1982.
7:43 PM - Name: Sich 1 - Magnitude: 2.9
Int'l Designator: 1995-046-A
This is my second sighting of Sich 1, a Ukranian earth observation satellite, launched in 1995.
7:45 PM - Name: Cosmos 1328 Rocket - Magnitude: 3.7
Int'l Designator: 1981-117-B
This is my is my first sighting of this Tsyklon-3 rocket which was used to launch the Russian Tselina-D ELINT satellite Kosmos 1328.
7:45 PM - Name: Meteor 1-31 Rocket - Magnitude: 2.7
Int'l Designator: 1981-065-B
This is my sixth sighting of this Vostok-2M which was used to launched the Russian meteorological satellite Meteor 1-31.
7:46 PM - Name: ADEOS 2 - Magnitude: 3.7
Int'l Designator: 2002-056-A
This is my first sighting of ADEOS 2 (Advanced Earth Observing Satellite 2), a Japanese earth observation satellite. It was launched using a Japanese H-2A rocket in 2002.
7:46 PM - Name: Meteor 2-10 Rocket - Magnitude: 3.6
Int'l Designator: 1983-109-B
This is my second sighting of this Vostok-2M rocket which was used to launch the Russian meteorological satellite Meteor 2-10.
7:49 PM - Name: Shijian 6-3B aka Shijian 6F - Magnitude: 3.8
Int'l Designator: 2008-053-B
This is my fourth sighting of the Chinese Shijian 6F satellite. It was put into orbit using a Long March 4B rocket.
7:50 PM - Name: ADEOS 1 H-2 Rocket - Magnitude: 3.0
Int'l Designator: 1996-046-C
This is my second sighting of the Japanese H-2 rocket which was used to launch the original ADEOS satellite.
7:52 PM - Name: ISS - Magnitude: -2.6
Int'l Designator: 1998-067-A
This is my eleventh sighting of the International Space Station.
7:56 PM - Name: ATV 2 - Magnitude: 3.2
Int'l Designator: 2011-007-A
This is my first sighting of ATV 2 aka Automated Transfer Vehicle 002 aka Johannes Kepler ATV. This spacecraft is a supply ship for the ISS, carrying 15000 lbs of propellant, water, air, and dry cargo. It was launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) from the French Guyana using an Ariane 5ES rocket. It is expected to dock with the ISS on Feb 24 2011. This sighting was cool because I was able to see both the ISS and a vehicle chasing it down in the same evening. If I'm lucky, it will be clear the day ATV 2 docks with the ISS. Actually, I'll be more lucky if I'm able to spot the two in the sky at the same time either pre-dock or post-dock. To me, that's more interesting. Oh, and seeing this object allows me to cross the year 2011 off my list. That leaves only 6 years from 1966 and previous that I still need to see objects from. I need to start taking my binoculars out so I can possibly see some dimmer objects. There were a few objects that had a magnitude in the mid-5s that I possibly could have seen with binoculars.
8:12 PM - Name: Shijian6-3Aptr - Magnitude: 4.0
Int'l Designator: 2008-053-D
This is my fourth sighting of this piece of a Chinese Long March 4B (CZ-4B) rocket which was used to launch Shijian 6E and 6F (see above at 7:49pm)
8:20 PM - Name: shooting star - Magnitude: 2.0
Int'l Designator: 0
This was a fast, bright white shooting star heading SSW horizontally at 40 degrees.
8:24 PM - Name: shooting star - Magnitude: 2.0
Int'l Designator: 0
This was a fast, white shooting star heading ENE horizontally at 60 degrees.
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