Too nice to even have a chance... well, except for 3

It was just too darn nice a night for me to even have a chance to go sky-watching for long. They neighbors two houses down were outside. Not sure what they were doing. They were quiet so that part was nice. Their outside lights being on sucked royal donkeys. Still I was not deterred. I managed to spot three sats in about 15 minutes. Then the neighbor next door on the other side, well, the neighbor's girlfriend, decided that it was time for a smoke, so of course she had to turn on the outside light as well. So I had lights on either side of me. So I threw a mental hissy fit and headed indoors. No sense being out there when I'm in a bad mood and can't see much. Too bad, too, since there were lots of bright, hard-to-miss satellites this evening, including two passes of the ISS. I missed the longer one at 7:30pm due to a poopy diaper. It was only going to be 1 minute long and in the SE, so I really didn't have a chance on that one anyways. The next one was going to be... 4 seconds.... and still low in the west. Tomorrow, and for the next 5 days, is when the ISS passes are going to be good.

The wife got me a cool book from the library about sky watching using binoculars. In the first 5 pages I learned all kinds of shit; like where the north star is and, for people in the northern hemisphere, how it only ever deviates 1 degree in the sky from directly north at all times. the numer of degrees the north star is in the sky equals your latitude (so, in Ohio, the north star is going to be at about 45 degrees). The big dipper (the Big Bear) revolves around the north star (as does the little bear, aka the little dipper - which I saw for the first time this evening). Your fist, held at an arms length measures about 10 degrees in the sky (this helps when the charts say a satellite is going to be at 40 degrees in the east, you just put your fist out at the horizon, then go up 'four fists' and there you go. Holding your hand out at arms length and spreading your fingers is about 22 degrees. The span of the big dipper is about 25 degrees. The north star is slightly yellow which helps identify it as well. Good stuff.

Huh... I just realized I didn't put in the two satellites I saw on Saturday morning. I put those in this post as well. Lil N accompanied me outside and was hunting for coyotes. It was cute. I didn't have any tables to go from, so it was just a matter of me watching the sky. Sometimes it's nice to just look for them without any real direction. It's more of a surprise when you spot them.

Here's the time-line of the morning of:
Date: 23-Oct-2010 Saturday

6:53am - SeaSat 1 - 2.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1978-064-A
First sighting! This object is a satellite named SeaSat 1. It is an ocean observation satellite for monitoring ocean currents, wave heights and sea surface temperature. Launched in 1978, it was pretty impressive. It was the first satellite designed for remote sensing of the oceans. It was also the first satellite to have synthetic aperture radar (SAR) (aka, take several scans using a radar to get a picture than what is possible by just doing one scan). Ha! Get this! SeaSat operated for 10 days until it shorted out on Oct 10, 1978. Unbeknownst to the scientists who developed SEASAT, the satellite was sensitive enough to be able to detect the wakes of submerged submarines. The conspiracy theory is that the military shut down SEASAT due to concerns that possibly a foreign military might be able to intercept the data from SEASAT and use it for recon. Cool story!

7:00am - Korons-Foton Rocket - 3.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2009-003-B
First sighting! This object is a Tsyklon-3 rocket body. This particular rocket launched the CORONAS-Photon satellite. This is the third satellite of the Russian CORONAS (Complex ORbital Observations Near-Earth of Activity of the Sun) program and the international LWS (Living With A Star) program. The satellite was designed to "investigate the processes of free energy accumulation in the sun's atmosphere, accelerated particle phenomena and solar flares, and the correlation between solar activity and magnetic storms on Earth". Unfortunately, due to a design flaw in the power supply, it fried after 11 months of operation.

Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 25-Oct-2010 Monday

7:34pm - Rosat - 2.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1990-049-A
First sighting! This object is the German ROSAT satellite, a x-ray satellite telescope. It was launched from Cape Canaveral in 1990 using a Delta II rocket. The satellite is named after Wilhelm Röntgen (short for Röntgensatellit). It's mission was designed for 5 years, but was extended by another 4 years. It ceased operations in 1999 after several main components failed one after another. Read up on this one as some suggest it's failure was due to a cyber-attach on some of NASA computers.

7:43pm - Zi Yuan-2B -or- JB-3 - 3.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 202-049-A
This object is the Zi Yuan 2B satellite which is part of the Chinese Zi Yuan-2 (Resource-2) program. While this satellite was reported to be a civilian earth observation satellite, it is possibly one of the the first chinese imaging recon satellites.

7:47pm - Shijian6-3 LMr - 2.5 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2008-053-C
First sighting! This is a Long March 4B rocket used to launch one of the Shi Jian 6 pairs (6E and 6F) of satellites.

17 objects on Oct 22

This might be a speed record. I went out around 7:25pm and came back in around 8:35pm. In a little over an hour I saw 17 objects. It didn't even seem like I was rushing. This evening was special because I saw all three of the COSMO-SkyMed satellites (including the first sighting of SkyMed 2). The fourth (and final) SkyMed satellite is set to be launched around Halloween.

Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 22-Oct-2010 Friday

7:28 PM - SkyMed 1 - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-023-A
Launched on June 8th 2007, this is the first of the SkyMed satellites.

7:28 PM - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 3.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
Sighting #12... almost halfway to #25

7:30 PM - Nimiq 4 Tnk - 2.7 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2008-044-B
This object is a Russian Breeze (Briz-M) upper stage rocket tank of the Proton-M rocket. This rocket launched a telecom sat for Bell TV and EchoStar (Dish Network) - Nimiq is Inuit for 'force that binds things together'. Unlike last time I spotted this object (9/27/2010), it did not appear to be strobing.

7:33 PM - IRS 1D - 3.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1997-057-A
First sighting! This object, IRS 1D, is one of many Indian Remote Sensing satellites. These satellites are for earth observation which help support the local economy by imaging water resources, agriculture areas and forests.

7:35 PM - Shijian 7 LM Rocket - 4.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2005-027-B
This is my third observation of this Long March / Chang Zheng 2D rocket.

7:48 PM - Tansuo 1 LM2r - 3.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2004-012-C
This is my seventh observation of this Long March 2C rocket.

7:55 PM - Cosmos 1220 - 3.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1980-089-A
This object is Kosmos 1220, a Russian ELINT satellite. Now, you might say "Oh, you've seen a thousand of those already". However this one is different. It seems the Russians developed two different ELINT systems. One is the Tselina system, which I've seen many many many of these. This one however, is for the other system known as the US system developed by the Russian Navy. This particular satellite is a US-P model.

7:57 PM - Lacrosse 2 - 1.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1991-017-A
This is my 2nd sighting of Lacrosse 2, the NRO recon satellite.

7:58 PM - ERBS - 2.8 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1984-108-B
This object is the ERSB satellite. This is my second sighting of this object.

7:58 PM - SkyMed 3 - 3.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2008-054-B
Launched on October 25th 2008, this is the third of the SkyMed satellites. This is my first sighting of this satellite.

8:06 PM - Cosmos 2228 - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1992-094-A
Second day in a row for this guy, which of course is a Russian Tselina-D ELINT satellite.

8:07 PM - Cosmos 1315 - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1981-103-A
First sighting! This object is Kosmos 1315, a Russian Tselina-D ELINT satellite. It was launched in 1981 using a Vostok-2M rocket.

8:11 PM - OrbitalEx Cn Rocket - 2.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-006-G
This is my third observation of this Atlas 5 Centaur upper state in three consecutive days.

8:16 PM - SkyMed 2 - 5.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-059-A
Launched on December 9th 2007, this is the second of the SkyMed satellites. I had been trying to catch this one for the past couple of days but it kept eluding me until this evening. This is my first sighting of this satellite (so, of the three I saw this evening, two were 'first sightings').

8:18 PM - Cosmos 975 Rocket - 2.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1978-004-B
First sighting! This object is a Vostok-2M rocket used to launch Kosmos 975, a Russian Tselina-D ELINT satellite, on 10 January 1978.

8:22 PM - Lacrosse 3 - 2.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1997-064-A
This is Lacrosse 3, the NRO recon satellite.

8:25 PM - Cosmos 1825 Rocket - 3.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1987-024-B
First sighting! This object is a Tsyklon-3 rocket used to launch Kosmos 1825, a Russian Tselina-D ELINT satellite, in 1987.

10 more on 10-21

Went out for about an hour this evening.

Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 21-Oct-2010 Thursday

7:49 PM - Cosmos 2228 - 3.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1992-094-A
First sighting! This object was the Russian Tselina-D ELINT satellite, Kosmos 2228. It was launched into space using a Tsyklon-3 rocket.

7:52 PM - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 2.7 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
(insert Eric Clapton song) Hello old friend. Sighting #11.

7:57 PM - AMC 23 BrzTank - 1.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2005-052-C
This object is a Briz-M upper stage tank from a Russian Proton-M rocket. This particular rocket launched two payloads. AMC-23 (or as the NASA page has it, AMS-23) is a communications satellite which underwent quite a bit of ownership changes. According to Wikipedia: "Originally ordered by GE Americom as GE-2i, transferred to SES Americom before launch and renamed AMC-13, then transferred to Worldsat as Worldsat-3 before being transferred back to SES Americom as AMC-23 in early 2005. Transferred to SAT-GE when it split from SES Americom in 2007." This is my first sighting of this object.

8:14 PM - ERBS - 2.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1984-108-B
This is my first observation of the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite. Unlike most objects I've seen, this satellite was deployed by Sally Ride from the Space Shuttle Challenger during mission STS-41-G in 1984. Read the wiki to find out about the many firsts accomplished during this mission. Back to the ERBS, it's original mission was planned for two years. But ERBS, like the martian rovers Spirit and Opportunity, completed its original mission goals and then remained active and provided data for more than twenty years. By the way, the 'budget' in its name is not about it being built for a low cost, it was actually studying a phenomenon known as the 'radiation budget'.

8:14 PM - SJ 12 LM Rocket - 4.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2010-027-B
This is the rocket body for a Chang Zheng-2D (str.). It's also known as a Long March 2D. Per Gunter's Space Page: "SJ 12 (Shijian 12) is a research satellite for rendezvous technology and satellite inspection. It made a rendezvous with SJ 6F in August 2010. Possibly physical contact between the satellites was established." Interesting.

8:19 PM - Helios 1B - 2.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1999-064-A
Hi! Remember me? I'm Helios 1, a French photo-recon satellite. Brush up on your mythology: In Greek mythology, the sun was personified as Helios. The end.

8:26 PM - shooting star??? - 3.0-ish Magnitude
Int'l Designator: nope
Honestly, this seems more like a flare than a shooting star... but nothing on the sites came anywhere near that area, so I don't have much choice but to call it a shooting star. For all I know, it could be something from the Orionids (though, at this time of night, I have no idea where Orion would be in the sky). Also of note, this is my 150th object observed.

8:27 PM - MeaSat 3 BrTnk - 2.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2206-056-B
This is one of the objects that I saw during the super mega session on Oct 8th. This is the Briz-M upper stage tank of a Proton-M rocket. This particular rocket launched the Malaysian MEASAT-3 communications satellite. It is one of four in the MEASAT Satellite Systems.

8:29 PM - OrbitalEx Cn Rocket - 2.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-006-G
I saw this yesterday (Oct 20th 2010). This object is the Centaur second state for an Atlas 5 rocket. OrbitalEx actually sounds a bit like Shi Jian 12 (recall NASA refers to it as "an American military (DARPA) minisatellite ... intended to test capabilities for autonomous rendezvous, refueling and component replacement". It appears that the name of the satellite was actually ASTRO for Autonomous Space Transport Robotic Operations satellite. Orbital Express was actually the name of the mission in which ASTRO and NEXTSat were launched and showed that ASTRO could dock with NEXTSat and refuel it.

8:34 PM - Cosmos 1455 - 2.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1983-037-A
This object is the Kosmos 1455 satellite, a Tselina-D model Russian ELINT satellite. It was launched into orbit by a Russian Tsyklon-3 rocket.

15 on 10-20

After managing to see a couple of Orionids this morning, I spent a good hour and half outside on the evening of 10-20-2010. It 57 degrees and a bit windy. I was without a coat, and I have to admit I started to get a bit chillllllly towards the end. Around 8:30pm was about the time I started shivering , but I wanted to try to catch Lacrosse 2 and Lacrosse 3 since both were going to be fairly bright, so I would keep telling myself... (insert teeth-chattering noise) "Ok, there's only 5 minutes til the next satellite"... "Ok, only 20 more minutes until I see Lacrosse 3".

Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 20-Oct-2010 Wednesday

7:30pm - Cosmos 2219 Rocket - 2.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1992-076-B
This object is a Zenit-2 rocket body which launched Kosmos 2219, a Russian Tselina-2 ELINT satellite.

7:32pm - Cosmos 1626 - 2.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1985-009-A
This object was the Russian Tselina-D ELINT satellite, Kosmos 1626.

7:34pm - Gbstr 26 Dl Rocket - 4.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1999-041-E
This object was a Delta 2 rocket body. This particular rocket launched four Globalstar satellites which are used for satellite phones and low-speed data communications. of note, Globalstar had four Delta II launches in 1999 - all of which were successful.

7:36pm - Shijian 7 LM Rocket - 3.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2005-024-B
This was a Long March 2D rocket body (also known as Chang Zheng 2D) which was used to launch Shijian 7, an 'experimental' satellite.

7:39pm - Cosmos 2056 Rocket - 3.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1990-004-B
This object was a Kosmos-3M rocket used to launch the Russian Strella-2 government communications satellite Kosmos 2056. This is my first sighting of this rocket.

7:41pm - MeaSat 3 BrTnk - 2.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2006-056-B
This object was an upper stage Briz-M tank from a Proton-M rocket which was used to launch MeaSAT 3, a Malaysian geostationary communications satellite.

7:57pm - Helios 1B - 2.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1999-064-A
Helios 1B is a French photo-reconnaissance satellite. It was launched from the French Guiana aboard an Ariane 20 rocket. Unfortunately, due to power supply failures, it has been left to disintegrate (though, obviously, it is still in a decaying orbit).

7:57pm - IRAS Rocket - 5.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1983-004-B
This is my first sighting of this Delta 3910 rocket that was used to put the IRAS telescope into orbit.

8:10pm - Meteor 2-13 Rocket - 5.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1985-119-B
First sighting! This object is a Tsyklon-3 rocket body which was used to launch a Russian Meteor-2 weather satellite.

8:16pm - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 2.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
I'm starting to lose count.... sighting #10?

8:41pm - Cosmos 1025 Rocket - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1978-067-B
This is my first sighting of this object. This object is a Tsyklon-3 rocket body which was used to launch ... Kosmos 1025 which was a boilerplate test. (A boilerplate is basically a mock-up that is used to test size, weight, aerodynamics, etc. Kosmos 1025 (the boilerplate itself) decayed recently (10 March 2007).

8:46pm - OrbitalEx Cn Rocket - 2.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-006-G
This object is the Centaur second state for an Atlas 5 rocket. This particular rocket had six different payloads. The site I use named it after one of the more interesting payloads which was, I guess, called OrbitalEx which NASA describes as "an American military (DARPA) minisatellite ... intended to test capabilities for autonomous rendezvous, refueling and component replacement". Cool! Oh, and... first sighting!

8:49pm - Iridium 41 - 6.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1997-069-B
This one of many Iridium satellites. But this is my first sighting of Iridium 41.

8:49pm - Lacrosse 2 - 1.7 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1991-017-A
One of the goals of this evening was to catch the remainder of the existing Lacrosse satellites. There have been five Lacrosse satellites, but only four are still in orbit (Lacrosse 1 decayed in 1997). I can say that this evening I accomplished that goal. This is Lacrosse 2.

9:04pm - Lacrosse 3 - 3.5 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1997-064-A
And this object is Lacrosse 3.

And a first for both of those!!!

Interesting (to me)

For the years between 1970 and 2010, I have seen at least one object from each of those years with the exception of 7 years (1970, 1973, 1974, 1978, 1979, 1986 and 1989). And that's with not even trying to see something from every year! I guess when you've had 125 observations, you're bound to cover quite a few years.

The earliest object I've seen so far is from 1961 (1961-015-C - Ablestar 008). The newest object so far are from the launch of the Shijian-6G and 6H satellites launched on Oct 6th (2010-051-A/B/C/D).

Top o' the morn' and the Orionids

Lil N had an EARLY doc appt this morning, so I was up early as well. Luckily for me, lil A stayed asleep. I knew that the Orionids (a meteor shower which they suspect is caused by the remants of Halley's comet) were going to be peaking tomorrow, so I knew that the odds of me being able to see something this morning were pretty good since the moon had already set. And... I did. w00t! I also saw a satellite. Yay!

The peak is tomorrow. Orion is high in the SOUTH in the morning. Evening viewing (starting around 11pm) is unfavorable because the full moon is approaching and pretty much washes out the sky. Early morning (4 - 7am) is much more preferred since the moon has mostly set by that point.

The meteor shower has a center that is to the east and up of Orions right shoulder (i.e. you'll be looking to the upper left of Orion.

Here is a fairly simple blog entry which explains where to look and has a nice image so you can see where the meteors should originate from.

Here's the time-line of this morning:
Date: 20-Oct-2010 Wednesday

6:38am - ATLAS 3B R/B -or- NOSS 3-3 Rocket - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2005-004-B
First sighting! This object is an Atlas III-B rocket body. It was used to launch the pair of satellites for NOSS 3-3 (Naval Ocean Surveillance System). The NOSS programs are operated by the U.S. Navy and detect radio transmissions from ships. Because the satellites are either in pairs or triads, they can use the radio detections to pin-point the location of a ship. Of note about this rocket, is that this was the last Atlas III-B (and the last Atlas III altogether) launched.

6:38am - Orionid meteor

6:42am - Orionid meteor

six on 10-19

It was a bit cloudy this evening which combined with the bright moon made observing a bit difficult. But, I still I got to see a few. It was also a bit cool out. I had my list all printed up... and then I left it at work. I had to 'old school' it and actually write some down frantically on a couple pieces of paper using a sharpie. The satellites are occurring earlier and earlier. Not sure what that's going to do to my viewing options in the winter since I usually don't get a chance to start viewing until 8 / 8:30pm.

Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 19-Oct-2010 Tuesday

7:47pm - Cosmos 2219 Rocket - 2.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1992-076-B
This object is a Zenit-2 rocket body which launched the Russian ELINT satellite Kosmos 2219. This is my second sighting for this one.

7:51pm - Cosmos 2333 Rocket - 2.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1996-051-B
This object is a Zenit-2 rocket body which launched the Russian ELINT satellite Kosmos 2333. This is my second sighting for this one.

8:10pm - SkyMed 1 - 2.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-023-A
This object is the satellite COSMO-SkyMed 1 which if you recall part of the COSMO-SkyMed program put into space by Italy for 'earth observation' which usually means 'spying on people' but supposedly also has civilian uses as well. It uses synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and has global coverage of Earth.

8:12pm - Cosmos 1626 Rocket - 3.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1985-009-B
This is a Tsyklon-3 rocket body which launched the Russian ELINT satellite Kosmos 1626. This is my first sighting for this one. I saw the actual Kosmos 1626 for the first time just a few days ago (Oct 15 2010).

8:40pm - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 2.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
Sighting #9 for this old faithful.

8:41pm - Cosmos 1455 - 2.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1983-037-A
First sighting! This object is the Kosmos 1455 satellite, a Tselina-D model Russian ELINT satellite.

super short session

This evening was a super short session. 10 minutes to be exact. But I managed to nab 4 objects in that time. I knew it was going to be short when I opened the door and heard my neighbor out in his hot-tub watching a football game or maybe a baseball game. Then, 6 minutes in, the dog next door did his duty to alert the owner that there was someone out there. They of course told him to 'be quiet' (they are nice people and literally said just that in a hushed tone). Poor dog was just doin' his ... erm her job. Then I heard the neighbor's girlfriend arrive outside which is when I called it an evening. The wife already worries that the neighbors think I'm a peeping tom, but remaining out there with my next door neighbor and his girlfriend in the hot tub would have just been weird. There wasn't anything that I ABSOLUTELY HAD TO SEE* and coming in early would mean I would get to spend some extra time with the wife. So it's all good.

Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 17-Oct-2010 Sunday

7:36pm - Cosmos 2237 Rocket - 2.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1993-016-B
This is a Zenit-2 rocket body which launched Cosmos 2237, a Tselina-2 ELINT Russian satellite.

7:37pm - Shijian 7 LM Rocket - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2005-024-B
This is my first sighting of this specific Chang Zheng-2D (str.) rocket body (aka Long March 2D). And no, I don't know what the str. means yet. This rocket was used to launch the only Shijian 7 experimental scientific satellite.
7:42pm - JB-3 or Zi Yuan-2B - 3.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2002-049-A
First sighting! This is one of three Zi Yuan-2 (or Ziyuan-2)satellites. This happens to be the middle child ZY 2B (or JB-3 2). Reported by the Chinese government (and NASA) to be an earth imaging satellite however some speculate that is one of the Chinese governments first high resolution military imaging satellites.

7:45pm - Cosmos 2058 Rocket - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1990-010-B
This is a Tsyklon-3 rocket body which launched Cosmos 2058, a Tselina-R ELINT Russian satellite. This is the first spotting of a Tselina-R launch. There have only been four of them to date (Cosmos 1508, 2058, 2151 and 2242) between 1986 and 1993. One could assume that no more will be put into orbit.








* OK, I have to admit there were a couple of PAM satellites up there. Yeah, I don't know what they are either. There were a couple of other new names in this list for this evening: GPS 53 PAM, NAVSTAR 53 R/B (PAM-D), OrbitalEx Cn Rocket, Cosmos 2469 Pl or P1 (I'm not sure which), IRAS rocket, Resurs DK-1 and Lacrosse 2. I attempted to see Lacrosse 2 a couple of days ago, however it's path is quite odd. Usually you'll see them go from N to S or E to W or some direction to another, but in general they equate into moving horizontally. Lacrosse 2 (at least at the moment) is going NNW 10 degrees to NNW 35 degrees when it disappears. In other words, it's traveling up (vertically) in a straight line. That can be hard to spot, even more so since its time being visible is also short.

Oct 15 - ten sightings

(I should be watching the OSU game, which is on behind me, but it's better if I keep my nose away from the stench that is the game that is currently in progress...)

Nearly a week since my last session. It was nice to take a break.

One thing I've meant to mention since maybe my third or fourth session is that the eyes can play tricks on you. Sometimes you SWEAR something is moving and then, the more you look at it you realize... no... no it's not.

Anyhoo... The start of this session was a bit awkward*. M was out getting groceries and lil N was vegged out in front of the TV. So I would look at my sheet, go out, spot something and then come back in.

Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 15-Oct-2010 Friday

7:38pm - IGS 1 H2A Rocket - 2.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2003-009-C
First sighting! This object is the rocket body of a Japanese H2-A (or HII-A). This rocket launched 2 IGS (Information Gathering Satellite) satellites. This was the first launch of this particular satellite program. One of the satellites was an optical spy satellite. The other was a SAR satellite.

8:02pm - Cosmos 1626 - 2.7 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1985-009-A
This object is the Russian Cosmos 1626 satellite. This particular satellite is used for ELINT (Electronic Intelligence) and is part of the Tselina-D program. This is my first sighting of this object.

8:18pm - Cosmos 405 - 3.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1971-028-A
First sighting! This object, Cosmos 405, is one of two older satellites I was trying to spot. Launched in 1971, this is the second Tselina-D satellite launched into orbit. Tselina-D satellites were launched between the years of 1970 and 1992. The final Tselina-D should have been launched in 1994, however this launch failed.

I saw this one at the same time as I saw TacSat-3. Read below for more on that.

8:18pm - TacSat 3 - 3.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2009-028-A
This object is TacSat-3 which is a U.S. recon satellite used to provide real-time data to troops on the ground. This is the second time for me seeing this satellite. The first was on October 10th 2010.

The cool thing about the Cosmos 405 and TacSat-3 sighting is that I could see them at the same time. Now, you could say I've done this before. That is true. I've seen satellites chasing each other. However, this case is different. Instead of them travelling in the same direction, they were on very different paths. Cosmos 405 was heading north to south, while TacSat 3 was heading west to east. Also interesting is that both satellites were the 28th launch of the year they were deployed, however they were deployed 38 years apart.

8:32pm - Cosmos 540 Rocket - 3.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1972-104-B
Another first! This object was the second of the old objects I was trying to spot this evening. This is a Kosmos-3M rocket body which, in 1972, launched Cosmos 540 (also still in orbit) which is a military and government communications satellite.

8:38pm - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 2.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
Sighting number 8.

8:40pm - Cosmos 2333 Rocket - 2.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1996-051-B
This is my first sighting of this Zenit-2 rocket body which launched the Russian ELINT satellite Cosmos 2333.

8:41pm - Cosmos 1452 Rocket - 4.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1983-031-B
This is my first sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket body which, in 1983, launched Cosmos 1452 (also still in orbit) which is a military and government communications satellite.

8:44pm - Shijian 6G Rocket - 4.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2010-051-C
This is a Long March 4B rocket which launched the latest pair of Shi Jian 6 satellites (SJ-6G and SJ-6H).

8:51pm - Cosmos 2219 Rocket - 2.5 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1992-076-B
First sighting! This object is Zenit-2 rocket body. It launched the Cosmos 2219 Tselina-2 ELINT satellite.





* Have you looked at the word 'awkward'. It's a weird looking word with the 'wkw' in there.

Finally finished the October 8th session where I saw 25 objects. Whew!
You can read it here.

Evening session

Managed to get back from Cinci in time to head outside of a little bit. Finally got to see the Hubble Space Telescope. I literally walked outside, turned to the south and there it was. Usually the Marysville lights kill the skyline over that way, but this evening it was really clear with zilcho clouds so it wasn't too bad.

BTW, I'm still working on the session from Oct 8th when I saw 25 objects. I'll post something when I finally get that session written up.

Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 10-Oct-2010 Sunday

8:36pm - Hubble Space Telescope - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1990-037-B
FINALLY! I've been trying to catch the Hubble Space Telescope for a while. But it seems like it is always in the south which is always flushed out with light pollution from downtown Marysville. Regardless, tonight was the lucky night. It was nice and bright. Here are some pics from the Hubble Space Telescope.

8:37pm - TacSat 3 - 3.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2009-028-A
First sighting! TacSat 3 is a U.S. recon satellite. It is designed to show that real-time data can be collected from space and then provided to combatant commanders in the field. The satellite contains all of the following: The Advanced Responsive Tactically Effective Military Imaging Spectrometer (ARTEMIS) hyperspectral imager, the Ocean Data Telemetry Microsatellite Link and the Space Avionics Experiment. All that stuff sounds cool. It can get data to the field 10 minutes after it is observed from space. Sweeeeeeeet!

8:42pm - Tansuo 1 LM2r - 3.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2004-012-C
It wasn't until today that I realized that I've seen this object 6 times. The first time I saw this one was during my first satellite observation session on September 13th. I don't think I need to speak about this one anymore (since I've probably talked about it five times already.

8:59pm - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 2.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
Observation #7 for ye olde and bright faithful. Also, according to my spreadsheet, this is also my 100th object observed!!!

9:00pm - Cosmos 2227 Rocket - 2.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1992-093-B
This is my first sighting of this Zenit-2 rocket body. It launched the Kosmos 2227 satellite which is a Russian electronic intelligence satellite from the Tselina-2 program.

9:04pm - Meteor 3M Rocket- 4.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2001-056-F
This is another Zenit-2 rocket body (and another first sighting). It was used to launch 5 satellites: Meteor-3M 1, Kompass, Badr B, Maroc-Tubsat and Reflector. I observed the Meteor-3M 1 satellite on October 6th, but haven't seen any of the other satellites thus far.

9:13pm - APEX - 4.5 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1994-046-A
This object is a satellite for the Advanced Photovoltaic Experiment (APEX). The satellite was launched using a Pegasus rocket which is not your typical rocket since it is launched from an airplane. I tried reading about what the APEX studied, but my brain is a bit fried so... read it for yourself. :P Oh, and this is my first sighting of this satellite.

9:18pm - Cosmos 2237 Rocket - 2.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1993-016-B
This is another Zenit-2 rocket body (and again, another first sighting). It launched the Kosmos 2237 satellite which is yet another Russian ELINT (electronic intelligence) satellite.

9:18pm - Int1002BrzTank - 5.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2004-022-B
This is the second time I've seen this Briz-M upper stage tank. While the Briz-M deployed most of it's payloads, one blight on the Briz-M's record is the launch of an Arabsat communications satellite in 2006. The launched failed and left the Briz-M and the satellite in an unusable orbit. A year later, the Briz-M exploded and created 1000 pieces of space debris. Oooof!

First morning satellite

Lil N got up at 6:00am after sleeping through the night (despite even falling out of bed). So, I went outside to stare at the sky. Lil N followed as well. Lil N was fascinated by the stars and kept saying 'there's Mars' and 'there's Earth'. Armed with nothing more than a pen and paper, I finally spotted a satellite going straight overhead. I also saw a shooting star after that.

Here's the time-line of this morning:
Date: 10-Oct-2010 Sunday

6:16am - CloudSat DPAF - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2006-016-D
First sighting! This object is DPAF (Dual Payload Attach Fitting) from a Delta 2 rocket. This particular rocket launched two satellites: CALIPSO and CloudSat. CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation) is an American-French (NASA-CNES) meteorological satellite. CloudSat is an American meteorological satellite.

6:20am - shooting star
WOOSH!

put it on the table (and other random non-satellite related stuff)

Our new table FINALLY arrived on Thursday. It's be 16 or so weeks in the making (after they told us it would be 8-12 weeks). Grrr. Dinette Gallery is not on my happy list. But everything is here now and I am very happy with the table and chairs.

Been watching Season 3 of Big Bang theory (we're trying to catch up as quickly as possible by getting them from the Marysville library... who is ahead of the Columbus library in that aspect). I can't get over how damn funny that show is. I hope they take their time in jumping the shark.

Been keeping up with the second season of Glee. We're both disappointed with the episodes thus far. Rachel seems like a complete bitch this season. And then there are just weird things that don't make any sense, like Finn, despite being in a dancing glee club, suddenly doesn't know how to dance one bit when he tries out for cheerleading, which in itself is just stupid. During the last episode of Glee, we caught ourselves watching more of the NOVA special called 'astrospies' which told about the US and USSR manned spy space stations programs. I had no idea that such programs were in place, let alone that the Russians actually managed to get it into space and had people on it. Check out the link above. It's way better than the last episode of Glee (imho).

When I got of the shower this morning at 6:15am, my daughter informed me "You smell like poop" and that "You pooped in the shower. PU!". Neither of which were true. What the heck? I was too tired to care, but not as tired as my wife who had to deal with lil N who got up at 4am this morning. Again, what the heck?

Anyways... it's 11:55pm and 6am comes fast.

Ok... I lied... here's a little bit about my satellite gazing: I had two really good sessions on Thurs and Fri. I'll write those up soon. This evening was insanely prolific. 25 sightings. I truly think that this number will be one which stands for a while. More on that later though.

G'night all!

Super Mega Spectacular Session

This is by far (pretty much double) of any session I've done to date. Twenty-five objects in one sitting. I think I went out around 7:45pm and finished up around 10pm (even though my last sighting was at 9:30pm). Craaaaazy man. Crazy!

Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 08-Oct-2010 Friday

7:54pm - Cosmos 1340 Rocket - 3.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1982-013-B
This is my first sighting of this specific Vostok-2M rocket body. When I think of Russian rockets, the vostok style is the type of rocket I think of. This style of rocket is what was used in the early days of the Russian space program. The Sputnik and Molniya rockets are similar in form to the Vostok rockets as well. Anyhoo... Kosmos 1340 is (like many Kosmos satellites I see) used for ELINT (electronic intelligence).

7:57pm - Cosmos 2455 - 3.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2009-063-A
First sighting! Kosmos 2455 is a Russian ELINT satellite (surprise!). This particular satellite is part of the next generation electronic intelligence satellite system named Liana. This model of satellite is called Lotus-S. Currently, this is the only satellite of this type deployed. Also of note, this is not in a generic low-earth orbit (LEO) but is in Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO); most likely polar sun synchonous orbit. This type of orbit (which is most likely also classified as LEO) is useful for image-taking satellites because, since the satellites orbit means that it is in synch with the sun, the shadows will always be in the same place.

8:01pm - Shijian 6-3B - 6.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2008-053-B
This object is one of the Shijian 6 satellites. It is known as either SJ 6E (E = fifth letter) or SJ 6-03B (since this was the on third flight, though for some reason the first satellite in a particular launch is always named B and the second is always named A. Not sure why.) Shijian 6 satellites generally have a life of 2 years, which is why they have been launched in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008 (including this satellite) and 2010 (which will be seen later on this evening). As with the other SJ-6 satellites, this was launched into space using a Long March 4B rocket. While the Chinese have not released the mission of these satellites, the guess is that they are ELINT satellites.

8:04pm - Cosmos 1833 - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1987-027-A
This object is Kosmos 1833 which is (yet another) Russian ELINT satellite. There sure are alot of those out there. This particular satellite is a EPN 03.0694 model. It's a dynamic simulator. Yeah, I don't know what that means either. But it's one of the many many many little dots going across the sky and it may or may not be looking at me or listening to my cell phone conversations. Or not.

8:04pm - COSMO-SkyMed 1 - 2.7 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-023-A
COSMO-SkyMed 1 is part of the Italian COSMO-SkyMed program which is planned to have four satellites. Surprise, it's Italy's recon satellite system to take a peak at what people in Europe are doing. This particular satellite is the first satellite that was launched for this program. It was launched on June 8 2007 aboard a Delta-7420 rocket. I've seen SkyMed 1 and 3 but not SkyMed 2. I'll need to put that on the 'need to see list'. SkyMed 4, the fourth and final COSMO SkyMed satellite will be launched on Halloween. Oh, and this is my first sighting of this satellite.

8:07pm - Cosmos 923 Rocket - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1977-059-B
Another first sighting! This is an older object which was launched in 1977. This particular object is the rocket body for a Russian Kosmos-3M rocket. The Kosmos-3M rocket has been used in 445 launches since 1967 with only 27 failures and is still used today.

8:08pm - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 2.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
Yeah... it's the Resurs 1-4 again. Good ol 1998-043-G. This would be sighting number 6.

8:10pm - Abrixas rocket - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1999-022-C
For the second night in a row, I spotted the Kosmos-3M rocket (see above) which launched the ill-fated Abrixas satellite (you know, the one whose batteries were overcharged and fried three days after being put into orbit.

8:18pm - Fengyun 1B - 5.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1990-081-A
Fengyun 1B is a Chinese meteorological satellite for the Fengyun program. Feng Yun means "wind and cloud". This was the second satellite for this particular program and is actually the second and last test satellite before they started putting the real satellites into orbit. This satellite was launched into orbit using a Long March 4A rocket. This is my first sighting of Fengyun 1B.

8:20pm - Hélios 1B - 3.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1999-064-A
First sighting! The Hélios 1B is a French optical reconnaissance satellite. While it was scheduled to operate for 5 years, it had a power supply failure just shy of that milestone. It's twin, Helios 1A, still continues to function today. Regardless, Helios 1B was launched using an Ariane 40 rocket. Here is a pic of the satellite.

8:24pm - Coronas F rocket - 2.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2001-032-B
This is my first sighting of this Russian Tsyklon-3 rocket body. This particular rocket launched the Koronas-F astronomy satellite. (What? It's not a recon satellite?)

8:31pm - Meteor 1-31 Rocket - 3.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1981-065-B
This object is the rocket body of a Vostok-2M. This rocket launched the Meteor 1-31 satellite which is a Russian earth resource satellite. I can tell you more about that in 22 minutes when I spotted Meteor 1-31 itself.

8:35pm - MeaSat 3 BrTnk - 3.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2006-056-B
This is the Briz-M upper stage tank of a Proton-M rocket. This particular rocket launched the Malaysian MEASAT-3 communications satellite. It is one of four in the MEASAT Satellite Systems. This is my first sighting of this object.

8:35pm - Tansuo 1 LM2r - 2.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2004-012-C
This is a Long March 2C rocket body which was used to launch the Tansuo 1 satellite which was capable of taking stereo imaging. I've seen this object 5 times so far.

8:36pm - Cosmos 1441 - 2.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1983-010-A
Cosmos 1441 is a Russian ELINT satellite, a Tselina-D model. It was launched using a Vostok-2M rocket. This is another first sighting.

8:45pm - Cosmos 1680 Rocket - 3.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1985-079-B
This is my first sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket body. It was used to launch the Kosmos 1680 satellite which is a Strela-2M military communications satellite.

8:53pm - Meteor 1-31 - 4.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1981-065-A
First sighting! This object is a Meteor 1-31 satellite or Meteor-Priroda. It was a weather satellite or maybe for remote sensing of the Earth from space. This was the Meteor 1-31 was the last of the Meteor-Priroda satellites launched.

8:55pm - CZ-4B DEB - 3.5 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2010-051-D
This object is some debris from the Long March 4B rocket which launched the Shijian 6 satellites SJ-6G and SJ-6H.

8:57pm - SJ-6G - 3.5 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2010-051-A
This is the SJ-6G satellite from the Shijian 6 program. It was launched on Oct 6th 2010. This is my first sighting of SJ-6G (3 days after launch), however I saw SJ-6H yesterday after having been launched only 2 days prior. This is my first sighting of this satellite.

9:00pm - SJ-6H - 3.7 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2010-051-B
This is the SJ-6H satellite from the Shijian 6 program. As with the other Shi Jian 6 satellites, they studied the environment of space... but possibly were also testing ELINT technologies.

9:01pm - Lacrosse 5 - 4.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2005-016-A
You know this guy by now. Lacrosse 5 is a satellite owned by the National Reconnaissance Organization (NRO).

9:02pm - Shooting star - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: yeah, right
Seeing shooting stars is always nice because they are always unexpected and bright and gone as soon as they were there.

9:07pm - Cosmos 1606 Rocket - 4.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1984-111-B
This object is a Tsyklon-3 rocket body. It was used to deploy the Tselina-D satellite Kosmos 1606 which (shocker) is a Russian ELINT satellite.

9:22pm - NOSS 3-3 (A) - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2005-004-A
First sighting! This object is the NOSS 3-3 A satellite. NOSS stands for Naval Ocean Surveillance System. It's also known as USA 181.

9:22pm - NOSS 3-3 (C) - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2005-004-C
First sighting! Supposedly NOSS 3-3 is actually a PAIR of satellites. NOSS 3-3 A is the main satellite and then this object is NOSS 3-3 B is known as the trailer satellite. The NASA site doesn't even acknowledge this which is odd. But whatever. This is the third pair of NOSS 3 satellites. A fourth pair was launched in 2007 however the Centaur upper stage shut down early. The satellite's propulsion system was not able to move it into its intended orbit so they were left in the wrong orbit. It's listed as a 'partial failure' which probably means that they can still do their spy business but not as well as they could have. Or something.

Whew!!! Thanks goodness that is over!

Not 7-11, 7-twelve

That would be because on Oct 7th, I saw twelve satellites or other orbiting objects (or OOOs - pronounced "Oooh!"s)

Got to go out for about an hour on Thursday. This was a good evening because I got to see two 'old-man' objects that I had been trying to see for a while. They were in the running to win the 'oldest object seen' award before Ablestar 008 came out of nowhere on Weds.

Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 07-Oct-2010 Thursday

8:06 - Iridium 16 tum - 6.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1997-030-F
This is the third time seeing the tumbling Iridium 16 satellite. For history's sake, Iridium 16 was launched on June 18 1997 aboard a Proton-K rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

8:13pm - Lacrosse 5 - 2.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2005-016-A
This is the third time I've seen Lacrosse 5 (aka USA 182), one of the National Reconnaissance Organization satellites. According to the NASA site "The payload is strictly classified as are the orbital parameters." Obviously the orbital params can't be THAT secret since people are accurately predicting this satellite. And here is the orbital information for you to see.

8:22pm - Atlas Centaur 2 - 3.5 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1963-047-A
First sighting!!! One of the original 'old man' targets. This object is the Centaur second stage of an Atlas rocket. According to NASA, launched on November 27 1963, this was used for performance and structural integrity tests of the Centaur second stage. The '2' denotes that it was the second launch of the Centaur. The first occurred in 1962 (I believe) however it failed and exploded. Oops. The third launch in 1964 also failed. Doh! Oh... and the fifth launched failed as well. Needless to say, they redesigned for a fourth time and after that, they didn't have any problems for about three years. Here's a pic of what the Centaur 2 looked like.

8:27pm - Abrixas rocket - 2.8 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1999-022-C
This is my first sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket body. It was used to launch the ABRIXAS satellite. ABRIXAS stands for "A Broadband Imaging X-Ray All-Sky Survey". It was a small satellite which had 7 x-ray telescopes on board. As cool as that sounds, the on-board battery was accidentally overcharged and the battery died three days after launch. Attempts to communicate failed and the $20 million project was abandoned. :( Here's a pic of the doomed satellite. The rocket also launched Megsat 0, which as far as I know was successful. So the launch wasn't a total loss.

8:31pm - Cosmos 44 - 3.5 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1964-053-A
First sighting! This is the satellite which got me thinking about seeing how old of an object I could spot. I forget when I ran across this one, but I consider it the original 'old man'. Kosmos 44 was an experimental Russian meteorological satellite, we think. According to the NASA site, "No official description of the Cosmos 44 flight has ever been released." But the orbit of this satellite closely resembled that of a the first announced experimental weather satellite (Cosmos 122).

8:32pm - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 2.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
Ye olde faithful (again). This is sighting number 5.

8:42pm - Cosmos 1508 Rocket - 2.5 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1983-111-B
This is my first sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket body. It was used to launch a Taifun 1 / Vektor satellite which was used for radar calibration... or something. NASA called Cosmos 1508 an atmospheric research satellite.

8:45pm - CZ-4B DEB - 3.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2010-051-D
8:45pm - SJ-6H - 3.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2010-051-B
Launched Oct 6 2010 00:49 UTC (that would be 8:49pm Oct 5 EST) These objects had been in orbit only 2 days (almost to the minute) when I first saw them. It'll be hard to beat this record. Funny enough is that I didn't even plan this. It wasn't even on my list. I just happened to see it and then through reverse research found out what it was. Ha! There were actually three pieces that were traveling together, but I only saw two of them. I kinda guessed at which ones I actually saw since all I knew was that they were about 15 seconds apart. The other is known as OBJECT A (Int'l Code: 2010-051-A) which I assume it SJ-6G. Anyway, all of this was to launch the 7th (SJ-6G) and 8th (SJ-6H) satellites that are part of the Shijian 6 program. Another Chinese website noted that these were part of the Shijian VI-04 group and that they were environmental research satellites. First sighting for both of these items.

8:48pm - CZ-4B R/B - 3.7 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2010-051-C
This is the fourth piece of stuff from the Chinese launch on Oct 6th 2010. This particular piece is a rocket body. Both Shijian 6 satellites were launched using a Long March 4B rocket. Here is a pic of the Long March 4B.

Cosmos 1606 Rocket - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1984-111-B
This "first sighting" object is the rocket body of a Tsyklon-3. Here is a pic of it and it's launch history. I don't know what is considered 'reliable' but this rocket has had only 8 failures after 122 launches (that would be 7%). This particular rocket launched the Cosmos 1606 satellite which is used for ELINT (electronic intelligence).

BREEZE M DEB (TANK) (or Int1002BrzTank) - 4.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2004-022-B
This is my first sighting of this Briz-M (or Breez-M) upper stage tank for a rocket. This Briz-M is the fourth stage of a Proton-M rocket and is 8.6 feet long and 13.5 feet in diameter. The payload for this rocket was the Intelsat 10-02 international telecommunications satellite. Here is an interesting article about the Proton-M when it debuted in 2001.

Chopped up session...

Haven't been able to go out for sat viewing because of all the clouds as of late. Well, last night I got a chance, but it was very chopped up. I went out around 7:30pm / 8pm. Lil N wasn't asleep yet, so of course as I went outside Lil N said 'You going outside to mow the lawn', so I did what any respectable father who did not want to disappoint his little one would say and said 'yes, i'm going to mow the lawn' :P So I got about 15 to 30 minutes in when my wife opens the door and hands me the phone. My mom had left our house and was going to visit a family friend at the James Center. However, literally when she got to the hospital, she turned left instead of right and ended up in downtown Columbus, so I had to attempt to get her to 315 N. She did most of the work on her own since she kept rattling streets off so fast that by the time i found one she had mentioned, she had already passed three or four more. Then she saw a 315 sign and I said 'uh... follow those'. So, after about 10 minutes I went back out for about 10 minutes, then the neighbors let out their dog which they have done as of late. And of course he starts barking and I didn't want a repeat of the other night where they let him out and then call him back in 5 times over the course of an hour. So I went inside. The wife suggested I go out the front door and then just stay towards the side of the house. Seemed reasonable enough, though the bright ass street lamps were killing my night vision. Eventually I went to the side of the house and it wasn't so bad there. And I got to see a satellite I had been planning (though not tried) to see and got it on the first shot. Then, no more than 30 seconds after saying 'There you are!', the light came on and the dog came out and I went back in for the evening.


Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 06-Oct-2010 Wednesday

7:56pm - COSMO-SkyMed 3 - 3.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2008-054-A
I think this is my second sighting of COSMO-SkyMed 3. The last time was on Oct 1 2010. Another little factoid for the COSMO SkyMed program: The plan is to have 4 satellites. Currently there are only three up there (obv SkyMed 3 is the third and most recently launched satellite). SkyMed 4 is planned to be launched on Oct 29 or Oct 30 this year! The satellite will be launched atop a Delta-7420-10C.

8:00pm - GEO-IK 1 - 5.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1994-078-A
First sighting! GEO-IK 1 is a Russian satellite which is designed to survey the earth and also carried experimental "Elekon" positioning equipment to monitor movements of land and sea transportations, to optimize and increase efficiency. The satellite was launched using a Tsiklon-3 booster rocket. This was actually the last in a series of satellites launched with the same function as part of the Russian GEO-IK (Musson) program. Amusingly enough, while this is one was the last one launched, it was named GEO-IK 1. All of the previous 13 satellites were given Kosmos names (Kosmos 1312, Kosmos 1660, etc).

8:27pm - Cosmos 841 Rocket - 3.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1976-069-B
Launched in 1976, this is a Kosmos-3M rocket body. Its payload was the Kosmos 841 satellite which was for gov't and military communication, primarily between the Russian Federation and its oversea stations. This is my first sighting of this rocket.

8:28pm - Tansui 1 LMr2 - 3.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2004-012-C
I believe this is my second sighting of this Long March 2C (CZ-2C) rocket body. The first time was on Oct 1 2010. Here is a series of photos for the entire Long March 2 series of Chinese rockets.

8:47pm - Meteor-3M 1 - 5.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2001-056-A
This is the first of a series of Meteor-3M satellites. The Meteor satellites in general are Russian weather satellites. The 3M series of satellites also had secondary functions, such as the testing the "spherical retroreflector for precise laser ranging. The retroreflector is a glass ball 60 mm in diameter, fastened in a holder providing observation from Earth at elevations more than 30°". Yeah, I have no idea what any of that means, but it sure sounds nifty. Also of note, the Zenit-2 which launched the Meteor 3M-1 on Dec 10 2010, also launched an additional 4 satellites (Kompass, Badr B, Maroc-Tubsat, Reflector). This is my first sighting of this object.

8:57pm - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 2.5 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
Ye olde (and bright) faithful.

9:07pm - Lacrosse 5 - 2.8 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2005-016-A
Ah... the Lacrosse 5, we meet again and again and again. This sighting was less of a 'disappearing act' and more of a session of peek-a-boo. It appeared to be more strobing in nature and never fully 'cloaked' itself.

9:11pm - Cosmos 2360 Rocket - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-045-B
This is a Zenit-2 rocket body which launched Kosmos 2360, another in a long line of electronic intelligence (ELINT) satellites.

9:29pm - Ablestar 008 aka Transit 4A Rocket - 4.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1961-015-C
First sighting! This was really the only thing I wanted to see this evening. I couldn't have given two hoots if I didn't see anything else this evening. This is the rocket body for a Thor Ablestar or Thor Able-star rocket. It was launched on June 29, 1961. This thing has been spinning around the earth for nearly 50 years (or 49 years, 3 months, 7 days -or- 17,996 days to be exact). This particular rocket is known as Thor Ablestar 008. It had 3 satellites in its payload. Transit 4A was part of a first satellite navigation system. It was later replaced by the now well known Global Positioning System (aka GPS) but only ceased their navigation functions in 1996. There's other cool stuff about the Transit-4A (and it's brother Transit-4B who was damaged by a high altitude nuclear test known as Starfish Prime.

8 sat obs - Oct 4 2010

I got a little session in this evening between 8:00pm and 8:45pm by which time a veil of clouds had rolled back in. Nothing of note other than I'm starting to piss off the dogs of my neighbors. They tend not to like people just 'hanging out' and looking to the sky or something. My next door neighbors put their dog out 3 times. He'd come out, bark, they'd pull him back in, then he'd get let out again, then barking, then back in, finally he was let back out but just stayed quiet.

Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 01-Oct-2010

8:01pm - Cosmos 783 Rocket - 5.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1975-112-B
This is my first sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket which launched the Russian communications satellite Cosmos 783. To date, this is the oldest object I have seen. I'm currently on the hunt of seeing Cosmos 44 which was launched in 1964. I believe there are a few more visible objects that are earlier than that, but Cosmos 44 is kind of the one I've been trying to catch a glimpse of.

8:05pm - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 2.5 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
My third sighting of this one.

8:11pm - Iridium 16 tum - 6.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1997-030-F
My second sighting of this tumbling Iridium satellite

8:18pm - Lacrosse 5 Rocket - 1.8 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2005-016-B
This is the rocket body for a Titan IV-B rocket. This particular rocket launched the Lacrosse 5 NRO satellite which I spied for the first time the other night. This is my first sighting of this object.

8:21pm - Tansuo 1 LM2r - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2004-012-C
I saw this one the other night as well. This is a Long March 2C rocket body.

8:21pm - GRACE 2 - 5.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2002-012-B
First sighting! This is one of a pair of satellites for the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE). This one is named GRACE 2 or, more politely, Jerry. (Yes, the other one, GRACE 1, is named Tom.) These satellite are measuring gravity. By measuring gravity, GRACE shows how mass is distributed around the planet and how it varies over time. GRACE data are important tools for studying Earth's ocean, geology, and climate. This is where it gets REALLY cool: The key measurement for gravity is not derived from electromagnetic waves either reflected off, emitted by, or transmitted through Earth's surface and/or atmosphere. Instead, the mission uses a microwave ranging system to accurately measure changes in the speed and distance between two identical spacecraft flying in a polar orbit about 220 kilometers (137 miles) apart, 500 kilometers (311 miles) above Earth. The ranging system is so sensitive it can detect separation changes as small as 10 microns—about one-tenth the width of a human hair over a distance of 220 kilometers. Honestly, I should have seen both of them since they were only 30 seconds apart, but I only managed to see one of them. I'll have to make a special note of this one since it wasn't on my list and I only happened by chance to see it.

8:26pm - Okean 3 - 3.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1991-039-A
Second time for this one. I spied this one a few nights ago.

8:32pm - SJ 12 LM Rocket 4-Oct-2010 3.8 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2010-027-B
This is the launch vehicle for the Shijian 12 satellite from Oct 1st (the racing pair). This is a Long March 2D rocket body.

Not bad. 8 objects in 1/2 hour.

13 in 1 night

Just when I figured my 10 in one evening record would stand for a while, two days later I bested my efforts. It was probably the extra half hour. Lil N went to be extra early this evening, so I got to go out on Oct 1 2010 from 8:00pm to about 9:30pm. Of note was that I saw seven in a row that were on my list... technically (I later figured out that I didn't see the one sat in the list but in fact saw a different altogether). Towards the end of the evening, I had two sets of neighbors on either side of me with their backyard lights on. Amazingly enough, since many of my targets were in the NE, it didn't bother me at all. Also of note, I've been trying to see the Fengyun 1C debris (Int'l Code: 1999-025-CVT). According to the one site, this should be fairly bright. However, I'm starting to believe that it's not viewable by the naked eye since it's about 2200 objects floating around. Possiblythe magnitude noted was for the satellite before China blew it up.

Here's the time-line of this evening:
Date: 01-Oct-2010

8:05pm - COSMO-SkyMed 3 - 3.5 Magnitude
Int'l Desginator: 2008-054-A
This was the first sighting of the evening, the first sighting for this object (and my first official satellite flare sighting I believe) and it wasn't even on my list. However it was basically in the same direction and altitude as the first satellite one on my list, but it was going the opposite direction. COSMO SkyMed 3 is an Italian recon satellite and carries a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) which means that multiple photos of the same object are taken and combined to achieve a high-resolution photo than the originals.

8:05pm - NOSS 3-2 Rocket / Atlas 2AS Centaur - 3.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2003-054-B
The NOSS 3-2 rocket body showed up 30 seconds after seeing the SkyMed flare. The NOSS 3-2 rocket body for the Centaur second stage of an Atlas 2AS. This vehicle was launched (reportedly) the NOSS 3-2 (aka USA 176) satellite for the Naval Ocean Surveillance System. This is my first sighting for this satellite.

8:11pm - Tansuo 1 LM2r - 3.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2004-012-C
This is a Long March 2C (CZ-2C) rocket body. This particular vehicle launched the Tansuo 1 (or probably more commonly known as Shijian 1) satellite which was going to be taking stereographic photos of Chinese land resources.

8:19pm - NOSS 3-4 Rocket - 2.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-027-B
First sighting! This is a Centaur second stage of an Atlas V rocket. This particular vehicle, launched the NOSS 3-4 satellite. That makes two objects connected to the NOSS program. This particular object appears to tumbling as it was 'strobing' every 1 to 2 seconds. These are always quite pleasing to see since it's just more than a 'little star' flying across the sky.

8:28pm - Meteor 2-6 - 5.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1980-073-A
I saw this one and the next one pretty much within seconds of each other, but they were heading in opposite directions. A first sighting for this object, this particular object is Meteor 2-6 which is one of many weather satellites launched by the USSR as part of the Meteor program. The NASA description is much cooler though: "It carried scientific and meteorological instruments, an electrosupply system, a radio system for precise measurement of orbit elements, an orbit correction system, and a radio telemetry system. "

8:28pm - Lacrosse 5 - 3.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2005-016-A
First sighting for thsi tricky little booger. This object is one which I've spoken of before. Lacrosse 5 is the National Reconnaissance Organization recon satellite which has the 'disappearing act'. And yes... that is exactly what I saw. It was fairly bright and then it disappeared within a couple of seconds. Interesting. Also interesting is that the Lacrosse satellites use the same SAR technology mentioned earlier for the SkyMed 3 satellite.

8:34pm - Shijian 12 - 5.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2010-027-A
8:34pm - Shijian 6-3B - 4.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2008-053-B
A first for both satellites. I saw this these two literally racing each other across the sky in the same path. Shijian 12 was being followed by Shijian 6-3B by around 2 or 3 seconds. In the sky that looks like about 2 or 3 inches apart. It was pretty sweet to see, honestly. It should be noted that they were launched 2 years apart. At the time of viewing they were both 593.7km above the earth. Shijian 12 is one of Chinese 'practice' satellites. Shijian 6-3B (or Shijian 6F), based on the int'l designator and the NASA site was one of a pair of satellites launched at the same time. This satellite and it's brother are possibly Chinese military satellites, but other sites list it as being designed to test the harsh environment of space.

8:44pm - Cosmos 2360 Rocket - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-045B
The Cosmos 2360 rocket body is from a Zenit-2. Its payload, the Kosmos 2360 (or Cosmos 2360) is an electronic intelligence (ELINT) satellite. This is my first sighting of this object.

8:53pm - Shijian6-3Aptr - 3.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2008-053-D
First sighting for this ... object from the Shijian 6 satellite deployment. It's probably part of the Long March 4B rocket which launched the two satellites; possibly the cover which shields the satellites on their ride into space (but that's just a guess on my part).

9:12pm - Cosmos 2428 - 2.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-029-A
Cosmos 2428 is another Russian military ELINT satellite that is probably part of the Tselina-2 program and possibly the last satellite launched as part of this initiative.

9:18pm - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 3.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
This is a bright old faithful which I have seen before. It seems to be on the lists I create everyday. I did a little more research and this particular Zenit-2 rocket launched SIX satellites in one shot. It appears that they were from various countries as well. There were satellites from Russia, Chile, Thailand, Israel, Australia and Germany. Interesting.

9:31pm - Cosmos 1833 - 4.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1987-027-A
Cosmos 1833 is another Russian ELINT satellite (and another first sighting). Of note: I saw the rocket body which launched Cosmos 1833 on September 25 2010. I've started an Excel sheet with all my sightings, so it'll be interesting to see how many Cosmos pairs (both rocket and satellite) I've seen. Actually, it appears that another Cosmos I saw tonight (Cosmos 2428) is currently the only other pair that fits that fits this bill. Oh, also of note: This is the first satellite I've seen which was listed as being at an altitude of 90 degrees (i.e. straight up). I've had 89's before, but this is the first true straight-up satellite... and it even wasn't on my list. I just happened to see this one while looking for another (which I never did see).

It's really late... so I'm going to bed. As my wife told me a half hour ago "6:00am comes too soon". Let me know if I made any typos or have any broken links.

10 in 1 night

Had a bit of a marathon sky watching session this evening. It has been cloudy cloudy for the past few days and when I saw the moon 'up' at noon today, I knew it was gonna be an awesome night for viewing since the moon would not be up. I was out from 8:30pm to 10:00pm and saw 10 little moving objects. I was armed with some new 'equipment' this evening. I had my handy dandy 'red' flashlight from the other night. I went out yesterday and bought a little watch which has a backlight (so no more running over to the window to look at the clock on the stove). I also started printing out the lists with a black background and bold white letters which beats trying to hand write the darn things. I pretty much manually grab it from one of my websites and then cram it into Excel where I can make it pretty. One cool thing that I saw TWICE this evening were tumbling Iridium satellites. I didn't even have these on my list. This happens every now and then. I'll see something that is quite clearly a satellite of some sort, so I'll write down the time, direction and elevation and then try to figure out what it is later. Sometimes I figure it out, sometimes I don't, but I lucked out this evening and 3 of the 4 unknowns I was able to figure out what they were.

Here's the timeline of this evening:

8:36pm - Meteor 1-31 Rocket (1981-065B) - 3.3 magnitude
I've spotted this one before. It's a Vostok 8A92M (Vostok-2) rocket body.

8:43pm - Nimiq 4 Tnk (2008-044B) 3.5 mag.
First first sighting of the evening. This one appeared to be strobing - It is a Russian Breeze (Briz-M) upper stage rocket tank of the Proton-M rocket. This rocket launched a telecom sat for Bell TV and EchoStar (Dish Network) - Nimiq is Inuit for 'force that binds things together'

8:49pm - SJ 12 LM Rocket (2010-027B) - 3.8 mag.
This one was a CZ-2D (Long March 2D) rocket body; launched Shijian 12 Chinese research satellite. Shijian means "practice" in Chinese. It should be noted that this rocket launched on June 15th 2010, which makes this the newest object I have seen having only been in orbit for 106 days (3 months, 14 days). This is my first sighting of this object.

8:51pm - Cosmos 1937 Rocket (1988-029B) - 3.4 mag.
This is my first sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket body used to launch the Cosmos 1937 Russian military and gov't communications satellite

8:55pm - Okean 3 (1991-039A) - 4.2 mag.
This is my first sighting of Okean 3 which is an earth science sat from Russia which monitored sea-ice conditions in the Arctic Seas. According to one site, it stopped working in January of 1994 after only 3 years of service.

9:00pm - Iridium 911tum (originally named Iridium 11 but renamed after it began tumbling)(1997-030G) - 6.0 mag.
This is a tumbling iridium satellite (i.e. it's out of control and is space junk) - strobing at 6 sec intervals. This is my first sighting of this satellite.

9:04pm - Cosmos 1455 Rocket (1983-037B) - 3.1 mag.
This is my first sighting of this Tsyklon-3 rocket body used to launch the Cosmos 1455 Russian electronic intelligence satellite.

9:15pm - shooting star

9:24pm - Iridium 16 tum (1997-030F) - 7.5 mag
This is another tumbling iridium satellite - irregular pattern - 15 seconds. It's also another first sighting.

9:36pm - Cosmos 2428 (2007-029A) - 2.6 mag.
First sighting! Cosmos 2428 is a Russian ELINT satellite