Happy Valentine's Day!!!

My wife is very cool. She got me a telescope for Valentine's Day. Yay! It's nothing huge, just a little ol' starter telescope but that's all I really need right now since I have no idea what I am doing.

In other space news, I managed to catch one satellite yesterday morning while looking through the glass of the front door. This is actually quite difficult because of the lights inside as well as the ability of glass to distort and degrade light coming from stars. I also managed to get a good hour plus outside last night in the brisk air. It wasn't too cold out but the wind nearly knocked me over a couple of time. I had about 3 old satellites on the list this evening, however currently the moon nearly overhead around 7:00pm so it washes out alot of the sky and the older objects were going to be very dim so, alas, I did not get to knock off any of the older years. When spotting things in the east, I would have to hold my hand or arm up to block the moon. That doesn't seem like much effort until you have to do it for a couple minutes straight. You arm gets tired quite quickly.


Here's the time-line for the morning/evening of:
Date: 13-Feb-2011 Sunday

6:47 AM - Cosmos 2360 Rocket - 3.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-045-B
This is my first sighting of this particular Zenit 2 rocket which was used to launch the Russian Tselina-2 ELINT satellite, Kosmos 2360 on July 28 1998.

7:00 PM - Cosmos 1763 Rocket - 3.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1986-052-B
This is my first sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket which was used to launch the Russian Strela-2M military communications satellite Kosmos 1763 on July 16 1986.

7:03 PM - COSMO-SkyMed 1 - 2.7 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-023-A
This is my 10th sighting of COSMO-SkyMed 1, an Italian earth observation satellite.

7:26 PM - ADEOS Rocket - 3.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1996-046-C
This is my first sighting of this Japanese H2 (or H-II) rocket which was used to launch the ADEOS 1 (Advanced Earth Observing Satellite 1) satellite. The H2 was launched only 7 times and succeeded in 5 of those launched. The creation of the rocket was an exercise in using existing technologies. It first launch was early 1994. Unfortunately, due to reliability and cost factors, it was retired in 1999 after losing its last 2 payloads, including one which self destructed.

7:28 PM - Shijian6-3Aptr (or CZ-4B DEB) - 3.8 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2008-053-D
This is my second sighting of this object which is some debris from a Long March 4B rocket. This particular rocket was used to launch a pair of Shi Jian 6 satellites, namely SJ-6E and SJ6-F on October 25 2008.

7:34 PM - Meteor 3M Rocket (or SL-16 R/B) - 3.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2001-056-F
This is my second sighting of this Zenit 2 rocket body. It was used mainly to launch Meteor 3M, a joint Russian-US environment/atmosphere meteorological satellite. According to NASA, this rocket also launched four other satellites: Kompass (a Russian for exploring earthquake prediction capabilities), BADR 2 (a Pakistani satellite for updating the status of ground based commanding stations), Maroc-Tubsat (a Moroccan test satellite for a 3-D attitude control system), and Reflector (a US satellite whose acronym means Retro-reflector Ensemble For Laser Experiments, Calibration, Testing & Optical Research).

7:49PM - Meteor 1-31 Rocket - 2.8 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1981-065-B
This is my fourth observation of this Vostok-2M rocket which was used to launch the Russian Meteor 1-31 meteorological satellite.

7:55 PM - Meteor 2-4 Rocket - 3.7 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1979-021-B
This is my first sighting of this Vostok-2M rocket which was used to launch the Russian Meteor 2-4 meteorological satellite in 1979.

8:02 PM - Helios 1B - 3.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1999-064-A
This is my ninth sighting of Helios 1B, the French photo-reconnaissance satellite.

8:18 PM - Cosmos 2406 - 3.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2004-021-A
This is my first sighting of kosmos 2406, a Russian Tselina-2 ELINT satellite. It was launched into orbit using a Zenit-2 rocket.






I tried to spot satellites from 1960, 1965 and 1966 last night, but their just weren't bright enough to be seen by the naked eye. I still need to see satellites from the following years: 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1965, 1966, and 2011. Only 7 more years to go.

One in the morning, one in the evening

Managed to get some time in yesterday during the REALLY cold morning and the just-about-as-cold evening. Both objects were new, so ... yay!

Here's the time-line for the morning/evening of:
Date: 10-Feb-2011 Thursday

6:46 AM - CZ-4 DEB - 3.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2006-046-D
This is my first sighting of this object. This is some debris from a Long March 4B rocket. This rocket was used to launch a Shi Jian 6 pair of satellites (SJ 6C and SJ 6D). These satellites are reported to study the environment in space, however some speculate that that may also be used for ELINT (electronic intelligence).

8:31 PM - Cosmos 1680 Rocket - 3.7 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1985-079-B
This is my first sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket which was used to launch Kosmos 1680, a Russian Strela-2M military communications satellite.

Another clear evening, thank goodness

I was starting to get a little bit of satellite spotting withdrawal. Finally it was a clear night. I only got about 5 minutes in, but that was all I needed to spot 3 different object, one of which was totally bad ass.

Here's the time-line for the evening of:
Date: 8-Feb-2011 Tuesday

7:26 PM - orange fireball - 1.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: (possibly) 2006-050-AM
This was a bright orange fireball that cross the entire sky, going S to N, in about 3 seconds. The odd thing about this fireball is that it wasn't circular. It was, well, like a wide bright orange line crossing the sky. About the width of your pinky nail. I believe that there was a very light smoke trail that was left behind. Based on one website, this potentially was the decay of a piece of a Delta IV rocket (a Delta 4M, the smallest of the Delta IV rockets, to be exact). It's marked as being 'debris'. Based on the amount of debris from this particular launch, I would have to guess that either something catastrophic happened to the rocket OR it was the victim of a space collision with some other piece of space junk. This particular Delta 4M was used to launch DMSP-5D3 F17, a U.S. meteorological satellite for the DMSP (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program).

7:26 PM - Cosmos 2227 Rocket - 2.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1992-093-B
This is my first sighting of this Zenit 2 rocket body which was used to launch Kosmos 2227, a Russian Tselina-2 ELINT satellite.

7:28 PM - Cosmos 2297 Rocket - 2.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1994-077-B
This is my first sighting of this Zenit 2 rocket body which was used to launch Kosmos 2297, a Russian Tselina-2 ELINT satellite.



I still need to see satellites from the following years: 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1965, 1966, and 2011. I notched 1969 at my last session after spotting Meteor 1-1. Only 7 more years to go.

Lately....

Here's a brief update of all kinds of stuff...
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The one job that I was really pulling for gave me a 'not at this time but maybe later'. That was very much a drag and very depressing for me, but I'm getting my head back up and will continue on the search.

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Ian and I went to the record show. Well, it's more like we were in the same building since we really didn't get to talk much and we didn't do lunch afterwards. I managed to get 6 or so albums. Amazingly, most of them WEREN'T dollar bin records. I got an album called 'Moog España' which I've already listened to. It is what it sounds like... some 'spanish' songs done with a Moog synth. Not horrible, but not that good either. I picked up a Railroad Sounds album on the Audio Fidelity label; this was a record I remember that my dad had that I played when I was growing up (listen to it on YouTube here). I picked up some bizarro album that I can't even describe except to say that it is a 1950/1960s album in the Hawaiin/Polenesian vein of things. For $3 I finally picked up the Rollings Stones 'Sticky Fingers' album with the zipper on the cover. I also picked up Jeff Wayne's musical version of War of the Worlds (released in 1978); obviously there is still come interest in this since there is actually a web page for it. I swear that I picked up another album or two, but I can't remember them for the life of me.

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When I got home from the record show, the wife asked if I was going to listen to any of the albums I bought. I then realized that since moving into the house a year ago, I hadn;t actually hooked up the record player. So, I went downstairs to do that. I don't have a proper stereo to play it through anymore, so I knew I was going to have to hook it through the computer, which was fine since I wanted to rip some of the albums. Well, let me tell you that the onboard audio for my PowerSpec is, to put it politely, very tempermental. When I was recording the Devilcake stuff for Ian, I pretty much had to restart the computer every time I stopped Cool Edit because it would get all confused. Plus, it wouldn't let me monitor anything so I was kinda doing everything blind. I wouldn't know if I had a good signal until I stopped Cool Edit. Anyhoo... the last time my parents brought more of my crap back from Portsmouth, they brought one of the few remaining junker PCs. It pretty much only has a motherboard, a case, an old 4x CD drive and.... a sound card. Since it was a computer I build for my parents, I think, or maybe it was one of my original ones that I gave to my parents... anyways... it had a 5.1 sound card / game card in it. I plugged it in and of course, being Vista Home Basic, it puked on the plug and play. But I refused to be denied so I cracked open the computer case again and tried my best to find my model number and all that happy crap. And, with a few swift keystrokes I had the Vista drivers. I hooked up the record player into the mixer board Todd gave me eons ago (while tempermental, missing some knobs and occasionally gives some nasty feedback if the cords aren't just so, it's still works like a champ), plugged the mixer into the Line In and viola. I had sound. Luckily Vista didn't get all weird and it worked without me really having to do anything. Thank goodness. So I ripped the Moog España and another album, Walter Carlos By Request whilst half-watching the Super Bowl. Looking forward to ripping some albums.

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I have too much crap in my house. Note, I said "I" not we. Whlie my Mrs may have some things, she also moved alot and any non-essential things were usually tossed in the transition. Me? I never moved that much and continually moved into a bigger place each time, so I kept everything. Well, now I don't have as much room for things but the piles are the same size and there is STILL more stuff in Portsmouth. So I'm going to have to do some soul searching, some selling and some trash dumping. I am admittedly a collector of just about anything. I like things. I don't like throwing things away that still have purpose. So I tend to keep things WELL past the time that most people would have chucked them. But, honestly, being in my little man cave is now a bit suffocating. There's just too much stuff and it all my stuff. So, it's got to go. I tried doing a CD purge before the last garage same and only managed to fill up one CD tower. I have 8 or 9 or something. And that's not counting the 5 or 6 boxes of CD boxsets. And it's certainly not counting the 600 cassetts I have. Nor is it counting the teb 12x12x12 uHaul boxes full of LPs. Or the one crate full of 78s. TOO MUCH STUFF. And that's just the music crap. That's not counting all the other things I keep which ... honestly.. i can't even enumerate or even elaborate on. Obv, it can't mean THAT much to me if I can't even put into words what I have.

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I've determined that "Storage Wars" on A&E is very curious to watch. I mostly enjoy it, though you can usually see how each episode is gonna play out. Dave's just an ass, but he has the money and skills (and luck) to shut most people up. Jerrod gets pissed off with Dave and usually ends up spending too much money on things (though sometimes, like for most, it works out). Darrell despises and taunts Dave with every molecule in his body... and of course Dave usually returns the sentiment. And Barry, never seems to know what he is doing and just baffles me to no end on the things he purchases and keeps and whatever.

I also started watching Gold Rush Alaska on Discover. I've only seen one episode, but it's gotta be close to the end. Basically these guys sunk 250k into equipment and leased a plot of land known for having gold. But they wasted 3 months using their homemade equipment that pretty much didn't catch any gold for various reason. So now, they've fixed the stuff but only have like 6 weeks or so left in the season. It's bizarro how you could sink that much money into and not do ALL of your homework. Sure, the dude's dad was a miner at one point, but cheese and rice, make sure that what you've cobbled together is going to do SOMETHING other than catch much and let all the gold flitter away downstream. C'mon!

Finally, a mostly clear night

On Sunday, I finally got a clear night after one entire week. Geeez! Stupid weather. Looks like it'll be cloudy at least until Wednesday. We'll see I guess. I did managed to cross another year off the list. I nabbed 1969. There were four 1969 objects this evening. I was going to wait until later in the evening, but decided that I might as well stick my head outside since at that point it was still clear out. Good thing I did. I missed the other 3 due to clouds or the fact that they were too dim. This evening was also very cool in that nearly everything I saw was a new object for me (including an inflatable habitat that is still floating around in space).

Here's the time-line for the evening of:
Date: 30-Jan-2011 Sunday

6:40 PM - Meteor 1-1 - 3.8 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1969-029-A
This is my first sighting of Meteor 1-1, the first fully operation Russian meteorological satellite. According to NASA, Meteor 1-1 "provide[d] near-global observations of the earth's weather systems, cloud cover, ice and snow fields, and reflected and emitted radiation from the dayside and nightside of the earth-atmosphere system". It even had a TV camera to beam down images to many of the world's meteorological systems. Meteor 1-1 was launched by a Vostok-2M rocket March 26, 1969.

7:17 PM - Cosmos 2360 Rocket - 2.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-045-B
This is my first sighting of this Zenit-2 rocket which was used to deploy Kosmos 2360, a Russian Tselina-2 ELINT (spy) satellite.

7:20 PM - Resurs DK-1 - 2.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2006-021-A
This is my first sighting of Resurs DK-1, a Russian commercial earth observation satellite. It is actually a modified Yantar-4KS1, a military recon satellite. Ground accuracy for the Resurs DK-1 is 100 m and can transmit 300 Mbit/sec. It does not do true color photography, however using the available red, green and infrared cameras, it is able to get approximately the right colors (water is blue, grass is green, etc). Resurs DK-1 was launched using a Soyuz-U rocket in 2006.

7:27 PM - UARS - 0.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1991-063-B
This is my first sighting of UARS (Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite). It was launched via the Space Shuttle, mission STS-48 in 1991. In short, UARS was designed to study the physical and chemical processes occurring in the Earth's upper atmosphere. UARS carried with it 10 different measuring instruments. You can read way more about it on the wiki page linked above because most of it is way over my head.

7:30 PM - Lacrosse 3 - 2.7 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1997-064-A
This is my third sighting of Lacrosse 3, a reconnaissance satellite whose existence was denied by the NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) until 2008. Lacrosse 3 was launched using a Titan IV-A rocket.

7:42 PM - Cosmos 858 Rocket - 4.7 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1976-098-B
This is my first sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket, which launched Kosmos 858, a Russian Strela-2M military communications satellite.

7:43 PM - Genesis I - 3.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2006-029-A
This is my first sighting of Genesis I, an experimental space habitat designed and built by the private American firm Bigelow Aerospace. It was launched using a Dnepr-1 rocket. I remember reading about this some time ago and thought that it would be cool to try to spot this object... but then promptly forgot about it. This was an experiment to build an inflatable space structure as per NASA's TransHab concept calling for the development of an inflatable and inhabitable space structure. Obviously, it is easier to launch a light, compact habitat instead of a rigid, heavy habitat. Anyway, 6 months after being launched, it experiences a severe solar radiation event which nearly disabled Genesis 1. Luckily, scientists were able to get it back online and it has had continuous power since then. Here's a cool picture (and more info) on Genesis I.

Brrrrrrrr on Jan 23rd 2011

it was a cold one this evening, but there were a few satellites from some of the years that I haven't seen yet floying overhead. It was fairly clear this evening and the neighbors mostly behaved (yay!) Managed to catch two satellites tonight including one of the ones that I wanted to see. I was actually working on my peripheral vision when I spotted one. Some parts of your peripheral vision are more sensitive to light. I was looking in the general direction of where one of the older satellites was going to be, though it appeared to be too early. Well, between the time I printed out my list on Thursday and tonight, there were some adjustments made to this particular satellite. It was showing up earlier and brighter. After doing a thorough check of the database, I determined that by luck I saw what I was trying to see. Awesome!

Here's the time-line for the evening of:
Date: 23-Jan-2011 Sunday

7:53 PM - Cosmos 1833 Rocket - 3.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1987-027-B
This is my third sighting of this Zenit-2 rocket which launched Cosmos 1833, a Russian Tselina-2 ELINT satellite.

8:11 PM - Timation 1 Rocket - 4.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1967-053-B
This is my first sighting of this object (and also the first sighting of an object from 1967). This particular object is a Thor-DM21 Agena-D rocket (from the Thor-Ablestar family of rockets). This particular rocket had (I believe) 8 payloads. The main satellite launched was Timation 1, a satellite designed to provide accurate time reference. It helped pave the way for GPS systems. Here is a pic of what Timation 1 looked like.
The Other satellites launched are a bit tricky to figure out what they are exactly since most of them were for the US Dept of Defense. :
* Two GGSE (Gravity Gradient Stabilization Experiment) satellites (GGSE4 and GGSE5).
* Two radar calibration satellites that were part of the Calsphere program, called Calsphere 3 and Calsphere 4. One was 16 inches in diameter and another was 20 inches in diameter. These were part of the SURCAL program. I'm only guessing that these are one in the same. SURCAL 160 was the 20 inch satellite. SURCAL 150B was the 16 inch satellite. Not sure which was Calsphere 3 or 4.
* Two U.S. ELINT satellites (Poppy 5) that were part of the Poppy ELINT systems (NRL-PL 151 and NRL-PL 153). Here is more info on the Poppy satellite system. These are SURCAL 152 and SURCAL 153. The existence of the POPPY program was only declassified in 2005, though most of the details of this program are still classified.
* Another satellite was SURCAL 159 was was some sort of radar calibration satellite (which is what they called the rest of them as well).

One site shows that 053F was Calsphere 3, so... as you can see... it is really really confusing on what sources to believe and what exactly was sent up there when all this crap is still mostly classified. Some sites refer to an 053A, but NASA doesn't even acknowledge this one... but the numbers seem to work out anyways... NASA has 8 objects listed and other sites have 8 objects listed as well. I think this has to two with the sequential object numbering. Why NASA doens't have an A.. I have no idea. Could be that a piece of debris (which the NASA site does not have information for) was considered A or something). It's all very confusing.

I still need to see satellites from the following years: 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1965, 1966, 1969, and 2011 :-). Only 8 more years to go. The early years will be the hardest. 1965 and forward probably won't be a big deal if the clouds behave themselves when they need to.

shovelling snow, spotting satellites

It was a cold mofo this morning. I knew that I was going to have to shovel the driveway, but I also knew there would be few and far between at work, so I was in no hurry to get out there... until I peeked outside and could see the stars. It's been cloudy as all hell (hell has clouds???) lately and I haven't been able to see ANYTHING!!! So I put on my glasses, got geared up and went outside to shovel and spot satellites. Of course, I've since learned that going outside with glasses when it's cold out and trying to wear a scarf is a no-go for spotting sats. Your glasses steam up like noone's business. So, I wrapped mostly my neck (which was the coldest anyways). I would shovel a little bit, then look to the heavens. Lather, rinse, repeat. So, I managed to spot a couple, one as the sun was practically coming up... and that one was hard since it was really really dim to begin with, on top of the sky in the east bleaching out and the moon almost being full and also in the west... so only looking straight up was is still mostly dark. I wasn't even sure I saw anything until I went and looked at the times on the satellite databases. Yee freakin' haw. I'm hoping for a late night session tonight (aka 10pm) but the clouds seem to have rolled in.. so I guess we'll see.

Here's the time-line for the morning of:
Date: 21-Jan-2011 Friday

6:50 AM - Lacrosse 5 Rocket - 1.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2005-016-B
This is my third sighting of this Titan IV-B rocket booster which launched the NRO recon satellite Lacrosse 5.


7:13 AM - COBE - 4.8 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1989-089-A
This is my first sighting of COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer). This is the bad-ass satellite that helped George Smoot (fans of the The Big Bang Theory TV show should know who this guy is) and John Mather win a Nobel Prize in Physics because it essentially proved that the Big Bang likely happened... or something like that. In the words of the Nobel Prize committee: "the COBE-project can also be regarded as the starting point for cosmology as a precision science". This satellite checked for cosmic microwave background radiation. It was launched using a Delta 5920 rocket (and was the only launch of both the specific 5920 model and the Delta 5000 series). This satellite did some cool stuff that is WAY over my head.

First satellite sessions of the new year!

Well, I finally managed to get all my duck (and satellites) in a row for this posting. Managed to get a few sessions (a couple morning sessions, a few evening sessions) on a few clear days at the very beginning of the new year. One of the main reason to go out during that time was the occurrence of the Quadrantid meteor shower which peaked on January 4th. I get to cross off a couple more years with my latest efforts (1968 and 1973) which leaves me with 8, no wait, 9 years (I have to add 2011 to the list now!) that I need to observe to satellite from. Some of those will obviously be more difficult since there are a few years in there that I think I will only be able to observe using either binoculars or a telescope. I guess we'll cross that when we get to it.

Here's the time-line for the evening of:
Date: 02-Jan-2011 Sunday

7:02 PM - Okean 3 - 3.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1991-039-A
This is my third sighting of Okean 3, a Russian earth observation satellite which monitors sea ice conditions in the Arctic.

7:02 PM - Cosmos 405 - 3.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1971-028-A
This is my second sighting of Kosmos 405, a Russian Tselina-D ELINT satellite. It was put into orbit using a Vostok-2M rocket.

7:10 PM - FIA Radar 1 - 4.8 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2010-046-A
This is my first sighting of this satellite. This particular satellite is classified by the United States National Reconnaissance Office. The launch designation was L-41 and the satellite designator is USA-215. The satellite itself reportedly the radar component the FIA system (Future Imagery Architecture). It is considered to the be successor to the Lacrosse satellite system. The government makes patches I believe for every space launch. HERE is the patch for L-41. However, it seems that the FIA program is in a bit of trouble. Remember that satellite we shot down a few years back, supposedly this was also part of the FIA system. There are also various other setback, cost overruns, etc that have plagued the FIA system. Anyhoo, the FIA Radar satellite was launched into LEO (low-earth orbit) using an Atlas V 501 rocket.

7:13 PM - Cosmos 676 Rocket - 3.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1974-071-B
This is my first sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket body which launched the Russian Strela-2M communications satellite Kosmos 676.

7:15 PM - COSMO-SKYMED 1 - 3.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-023-A
This is my ninth observation of the Italian earth observation satellite, COSMO-Skymed 1.

7:18 PM - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 1.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
This is my 24th sighting of this Zenit-2 Rocket aka "ye olde bright and faithful".

7:23 PM - IRAS - 5.3 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1983-004-A
This is my 3rd sighting IRAS (Infrared Astronomical Satellite)

7:32 PM - Quadrantid meteor - -1.0 Magnitude
This was a bright orange shooting star that headed into the east.

7:38 PM - Cosmos 400 Rocket - 6.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1971-020-B
This is my first sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket body which put Kosmos 400 into orbit. The significance of Kosmos 400 is that it was used by the Russians as a target (model name: DS-P1-M) to test anti-satellite missiles. Kosmos 400 was launched into orbit on March 18 1971. On April 4 1971, the Russians launched Kosmos 404 which intercepted and destroyed Kosmos 400. Debris from this intercept is still orbiting around the earth. HERE is a picture of what Kosmos 400 looked like.

7:44 PM - OAO 2 Rocket - 4.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1968-110-B
This is my first sighting of this Atlas-SLV3C Centaur-D rocket which put a Orbiting Astronomical Observatory (OAO) satellite into orbit. The Atlas SLV-3 was derived from the SM-65 Atlas missile, the first ICBM capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to ANYWHERE on earth. The Atlas SLV-3 was not very successful. Out of 5 launches, only 3 succeeded. But this rocket succeeded. The satellite that was put into orbit was OAO-2 aka Stargazer. There were four space observatories launched into orbit between 1966 and 1972. These observatories provided the first high-quality ultraviolet observations of many objects. Two of the four observatories failed. OAO-2 was NOT one of them. Carrying 11 ultraviolet telescopes, it performed observations until 1973 including discovering that comets are surrounded by giant halos of hydrogen.

7:49 PM - Cosmos 1674 - 4.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1985-069-A
This is my second sighting of Kosmos 1674, a Russian Tselina-D ELINT satellite.

7:51 PM - Quadrantid meteor - -1.0 Magnitude
This was a bright white shooting star that headed to the NW.

7:53 PM - Aureole 2 Rocket - 3.8 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1973-107-B
This is my first sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket which was used to launched the Russian Aureole 2 satellite. Aureole 2 was designed to study the magnetosphere and the nature of polar aurora.


Here's the time-line for:
Date: 03-Jan-2011 Monday

6:21 AM - Yaogan 1 - 2.8 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2006-015-A
This is my second sighting of Yaogan 1, the Chinese remote sensing satellite.

6:28 AM - Ciel 2 Tank - 2.8 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2008-063-B
This is my first sighting of this Briz-M tank. It was part of the Proton-M launch of the Ciel-2 satellite, a Canadian commercial communications satellite. Here's more on the Ciel-2 satellite.

8:28 PM - Quadrantid meteor - 1.0 Magnitude
This shooting star was heading W to N (possibly not a quadrantid due to its direction)


Here's the time-line for:
Date: 04-Jan-2011 Tuesday

6:22 AM - Quadrantid meteor - 1.0 Magnitude
This shooting star was heading downward in the N

6:23 AM - Meteor 1-11 - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1972-022-A
This is my first observation of Meteor 1-11, a Russian meteorological satellite. This satellite was one of many (30 plus) Meteor 1 type satellites. It was the first of 3 to be launched in 1972.

7:03 PM - COSMO-SkyMed 2 - 3.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-059-A
This is my sixth sighting of COSMO-Skymed 2, an Italian earth observation satellite.

7:12 PM - Aureole 2 Rocket - 3.8 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1973-107-B
This is my second sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket which was used to launched the Russian Aureole 2 satellite.

7:33 PM - Cosmos 2369 rocket - 2.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2000-006-B
This is my first sighting of this Zenit-2 rocket which was used to launch the Kosmos 2369 satellite. NASA believes this satellite is for Russian communications, however most websites believe this to be a Russian Tselina-2 ELINT satellite.



I managed to pick off 1968 and 1973 in this series of sessions. I still need to see satellites from the following years: 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1973, and 1979 ... oops and 2011 :-).

For some reason today, I thought about a couple of Saturday Night Live clips that I saw recently which cracked me up (and still crack me up) to the point of losing my breath. I'm sure I'm the only one who finds these clips that hilarious:

SNL's take on the Lawrence Welk Show, featuring Betty White (though that's not who I find hilarious in this clip, that would be Kristen Wiig as Dooneese)


This a clip about a veteran reporter with Herb Welch reporting. He seems to have some issues with the microphone:

Good weekend...

The Mrs and I got away from the little boogers for a b-day celebration for the wife. It was nice to get away, eat food without rushing, sleep in, see some friends etc. Grandma survived the weekend as well. She's a trooper and loves the kids and they love her, so everyone wins!

I have about 3 days of satellite observations that I need to get entered in... that will be posted in the coming days.

I'm sorry... but...

...Josh Groban cracks my shit up. First there was the song he did on ... the Emmy's where at one point he actually sang The South Park, Love Boat and Prince of Bel-Air themes (amongst many others). Then he did a cheezy tune with Ben Folds and has sang with him a couple of times on tour.

And now this... from the Jimmy Kimmel show. Josh Groban singing Kanye West's tweets.

I'm sorry, but Josh Groban is some funny shit. I'm glad he doesn't take himself very seriously. My wife dislikes him, not so much for his voice but because as she says "he rolls his eyes back into his head when he sings. i like josh groban as long as i don't have to watch him." :-P I admit, with the limited exposure I've had, I think his voice is quite good and can actually do more than his usual 'broadway' timbre.


He's the Kanye West thing which brought this post to fruition:


Here's the Emmy thing:


Ben Folds / Josh Groban - "Life is a Masquerade" (written as a joke. if you don't listen to the lyrics, the music and melody is quite good)

Sun Dogs

I've seen a few weird sunlight phenomenon since moving to Marysville. I think it's mainly because on the drive home it's just lots of open fields and whatnot. Anyways, you see these things that look like mini-rainbows.

But yesterday was special. I nearly saw an entire CIRCLE rainbow. Screw that guy and his double rainbow crap, I saw what was nearly a rainbow in full circle.

And, by chance, I ran into a website this morning that told me that whis phenomenon (and the little rainbows as well) is called. They are called sun dogs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_dog

This is approx what I saw yesterday, except that it was more completed and more rainbow like:

Happy Holidays and 3 Satellites

A happy holiday was had by all. I got some very cool stuff. Lots o CDs, DVDs n Books. The kiddos got sweet stuff as well. I took the week between Christmas and New Years off this year, so it's even sweeter.

The clouds finally cleared this evening so I was able to spot a few satellites. Yay! It was cold and I swear that my watch is off by a few minutes, but I sync'd up my computer using Tardis and the watch shows that it is within 20 seconds or so. So I dunno.

Here's the time-line for the evening of:
Date: 27-Dec-2010 Monday

7:03 PM - Cosmo-SKYMED 1 - 2.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-023-A
This is my eighth sighting of SkyMed 1, the Italian earth observation satellite.

7:06 PM - Cosmos 1603 - 3.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1984-106-A
This is my first sighting of Kosmos 1603, a Russian Tselina-2 ELINT satellite. This was the first Tselina-2 satellite to be put into orbit. It was put into orbit using a three stage Proton-K rocket with a Blok-DM-2 upper stage.

7:22 PM - Cosmos 1536 Rocket - 3.8 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1984-013-B
This is my first sighting of this Tsyklon-3 rocket which was used to put the Russian Cosmos 1536 Tselina-D ELINT satellite into orbit.

Family Fun and 1 sat

Tom and Amy came over with their wonderful kids. We all got to run and jump and play. We also had tasty pizza. Papa Murphy's really is da bomb (though this one seemed a bit greasier than usual.

After they left the Mrs gave our kids a bath. I put lil A to bed.

I went outside, armed with a list of 10 satellites to look for, around 7:10pm. It was probably in the teens. Luckily, I managed to find a scarf that I've had since I was 10 (it was way too big then, but fits pretty good now). It is a good scarf and it kept my face warm. However, there were some spotty clouds, the moon was fairly bright and the sky was a bit whitewashed, so I only saw one satellite this evening. Glad I saw one 'cause I would have been a bit preturbed to stand outside for a half hour to see nothing.

Here's the time-line for the evening of:
Date: 18-Dec-2010 Saturday

7:35 PM - Cosmos 1125 Rocket - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1979-078-B
This is my first sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket, which was used to launched the Russian Stela-2M military communications satellite. Of note, the Kosmos-3M rocket has been involved in a few accidents. In 1973 a Kosmos-3M rocket exploded and killed 9 people. In 1976, another Kosmos-3M exploded killing another 9 people. Overall, however, the Kosmos-3M is fairly reliable with 424 successful launches and only 20 failures (a 4.5% failure rate). The first flight of a Kosmos-3M occurred in 1967. The most recent flight of a Kosmos-3M occurred in April 2010.

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Also, I just read that Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) passed away due to multiple sclerosis. RIP.

1979!

Got to go out for about 10 minutes (which was plenty 'cause it was COLD outside, probably around 20 F. Brrrrrr. My goal was simply to see as specific object which was launched in 1979. And I got it. Take that space junk! Only 10 more years to go!

Here's the time-line for the morning of:
Date: 17-Dec-2010 Friday

7:09 PM - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 2.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
Ahhh, another sighting of ye olde bright and faithful. This is sighting number 23 of this Zenit-2 rocket.

7:12 PM - Meteor 2-5 Rocket - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1979-095-B
This is my first sighting of this Vostok-2M rocket, which was used to launched the Russian Meteor 2-5 meteorological satellite into orbit. Some Vostok-2M trivia for ya: 1) The first Vostok-2M launch occurred in 1964 to launch Kosmos 44 (one of the original 'old' satellites I was trying to see) 2) In 1980, a Vostok-2M scheduled to launch Kosmos 1169 exploded on the launch pad during fueling, killing 48 people.

7:12 PM - IRAS - 4.8 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1983-004-A
This is my second sighting of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS).



I still need to see satellites from the following years: 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1973, and 1979.

Geminids!!!

The Geminids (a December meteor storm whose focal point is the constellation of Gemini) peaked on the morning of December 14th. I had kinda planned on trying to see a couple on my way out to the car to go to work. However, around 5:30am the Mrs came in and told me to get up with lil N who had been up since 4am (ugh!). At first, this was a big drag. However, it was a blessing in disguise. I went into the kitchen which faces west and looked out the window. And that's when I saw my first Geminid meteor. Looking through the window was a bit difficult at first since the lamp in the other room was in the wrong spot and was reflecting regardless of where I was. I finally went in and switched which lamp was on. Eventually lil N inquired what I was doing. I said "I'm looking for shooting stars". And she said enthusiastically "Reeeeallly?" And I said, "Yes. Do you want to sit with me and watch some?" She said "YeahhhhhH!". So I turned off the TV and all the lights, opened up the blinds on the sliding door which faces west, put two chairs right in front of the windows, sat her down and pointed towards Gemini (just above Orion) and said "Watch right up there". I no more than sat down and "woooooosh!", a bright white shooting star streaked to the west, leaving a smoke trail (which quickly went away) in its path. Lil N exclaimed "I saw it, I saw it!". I was so happy that she got to see one. And it was the best one of the morning. Yay! After about 5 more minutes, lil N started freaking out a bit. Turns out she was a little scared of the dark. So, I turned back on the TV and watched for a another half hour. Also of note, this was the first time I spotted satellites from inside as well, one of which happened to be my 300th object. Good stuff!

Here's the time-line for the morning of:
Date: 14-Dec-2010 Tuesday

5:30 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading SW

5:37 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading WSW

5:37 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading WSW

5:44 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading SW

5:44 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading W

5:45 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading SW

5:53 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading W
This was one that lil N and I saw together; the bright one that left a smoke trail

5:56 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading W

6:11 AM - Yaogan 1 - 2.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2006-015-A
This is my first sighting of Yaogan 1. This is a Chinese remote sensing satellite. While China stated that this was for "scientific experiments, land survey, crop yield" and etc, most speculate that this is actually a reconnaissance satellite named JB-5 1 and utilizes SAR. Also of note, supposedly Yaogan 1 broke up back in February 2010. This satellite was 'twinkling' so maybe that was the reason for this. Other satellite observers believe that something internal when wrong because if it was hit by another satellite it would be in many more pieces that it is.

6:17 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading NW

6:22 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading S

6:22 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading W

6:11 AM - Cosmos 1937 Rocket - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1988-029-B
This is my second sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket. This particular rocket launched Cosmos 1937, a Russian Strela-2M communications satellite.

6:24 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading NW

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, it's cold!

I got to do my first shoveling of the year. I think we had about 3 inches in the driveway. While shoveling I managed to see one satellite. Yay!

Then I drove to work and the car turned over 100k. And somehow, with only .7 miles to go from when I had last looked at it, I missed that magical moment. I had to do the clover leaf at 33 and needed to pay attention to the yay-hoos who were driving REALLY slow. I didn't realize it until I got to about Sr 42 and I looked down and it was at 100004.something. I was so excited about it too. I thought MAYBE that it would roll over on my drive out of the neighborhood. But nope. Oh well. Sometimes life goes like that. You miss something that you think will be the greatest thing and then a day or two later you realize it wasn't that big of a deal in the first place.

It was clear this evening so I got to go out and shiver me timbers off outside. I only spotted 3 this evening. I should have had 5 but just at two satellites were going to cross in the sky, looking straight up, as little patch of dense clouds came through 5 minutes before they satellites would have been overhead and stayed there until 2 minutes after my window had past. By that point my cheeks were frozen since I wasn't smart enough to put on a scarf, so despite having another 1/2 hour worth of things to check out, I went in. I was cold.

But even seeing those 4 today was more than I've seen probably in the past 3 weeks.


Here's the time-line for:
Date: 13-Dec-2010 Monday

6:45 AM - Lacrosse 2 - 1.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1991-017-A
This is my third sighting of Lacrosse 2, the NRO recon satellite.

6:22 PM - Zi Yuan-2B (or JB-3) - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2002-049-A
This is my 6th sighting of Zi Yuan 2B, the earth imaging satellite from China.

6:33 PM - Spot 1 r DebY (or SPOT 1 Rocket Y) - 2.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1986-019-Y
This is my first sighting of this object. This is a piece of rocket debris from either an Ariane 1 rocket which launched two satellites: SPOT 1 and Viking. First, about the rocket. The Ariane 1 was ESA's (European Space Agency) first rocket. It was designed to put two satellites into orbit at a time. This particular launch was the last for the Ariane 1, which gave way to the more powerful Ariane 2 and Ariane 3. The Ariane 1 was a four stage rocket. I'm not sure if debris Y is one of those stages or what. There were quite a few pieces of debris associated with this particular rocket launch. Dunno. And now a little bit about the two satellites: SPOT 1 was the first of five French remote sensing satellites. SPOT 1 had imaging capabilities and had a resolution of 10 to 20 meters. The other payload was Viking, Sweden first satellite. According to Wikipedia, "Viking was used to explore plasma processes in the magnetosphere and the ionosphere." Yeah, I really don't know what that means. Read up on it because learning about how a satellite "could measure the electric field of the earth in all three dimensions" sounds kinda cool to me.

6:34 PM - Cosmos 2428 Rocket - 4.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-029-B
This is my third sighting of this Zenit-2M rocket body which launched a Russian Tselina-2 ELINT satellite.


Just out of curiosity, I still need to see satellites from the following years: 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1973, and 1979. I figure out of those 11 years, probably 7 of those years have satellites or rocket bodies that are visible with the naked eye. The others will probably require binoculars or maybe even a telescope to see. It could be that the winter months will provide me force me to be more selective and if I have a something specific to see (such as something from the years I haven't seen yet), that will help me make a more 'educated' decisions... unlike tonight when I had an hour and a half's worth of satellites to see when it was 20 degrees with a wind chill of something like 10 degrees.

SpaceX rocks and 1 sat

SpaceX

Well, the launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Dragon capsule attached went of nearly without a hitch on Wednesday. They had to stop the countdown on the first attempt, but the second countdown went off without a hitch. Both stages of the rocket performed nominally (i.e. within parameters), the Dragon capsule detacted successfully and then the Dragon capsule performed 2 orbits 180 miles above the earth, re-entered the atmosphere, deployed the 3 main chutes and splashed down in the Pacific ocean 500 miles off of Southern California. Only 6 countries have ever sent up an object and successfully returned it to earth. This marks the first time that a non-country organization has done this. Awesome.

It was also determined that the Dragon carried two payloads. One was a military nanosatellite for the Army. The other what a big wheel of cheese as an homage to a Monty Python skit.

Despite the Monty Python reference :P, it could be that the next stop for the next SpaceX launch could be the International Space Station. That would be HUGE!

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Sat

Went out to go to work this morning and it was crystal clear, unlike the non-stop cloudy skies we've had for the past week. So I stared at the sky for a few minutes and managed to catch one going from N to S through the W. I also went out this evening around 7"15pm as there were at least some breaks in the clouds, but it was just too late and there were still quite a few clouds. The moon and mostly clouds were in the W and that's where the satellites are likely to be that late in the evening. Didn't see anything in the E. And since I was constantly facing one direction, it started to get cold... though I truly believed it was going to be much colder than it actually was.


Here's the time-line for morning of:
Date: 09-Dec-2010 Thursday

6:20 AM - Cosmos 2428 Rocket - 2.7 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-029-B

This is my second sighting of this Zenit-2M rocket body. This is a slightly different rocket than the Zenit-2, though I honestly can't tell you what the difference is. Wikipedia says that there are some modification and upgrades. As far as I can tell from both Wikipedia and Gunter's Space Page, there has only been one launch of a Zenit-2M, though it's odd that they show two separate pictures of the rocket and note that two different companies can launch the Zenit-2M. It looks like maybe they've never launched a true Zenit-2SLB and went straight to the Zenit-3SLB. *shrug* I dunno.

Anyways, this rocket launched Cosmos 2428, a Tselina-2 Russian ELINT satellite.

random crap

JOB

Well... I still haven't found a job yet. Which is okay for now since I still have the one I'm at. The market doesn't seem to be bad, though I was hoping a bit more from some of the agencies around here. With the market being the way it is, I was hoping for at least 3 referrals by now. Alas, that is not the case. Most others won't return my calls when they find I'm only looking at FTE positions. Eventually I'll have to open up to Contract-to-Hire, but not just yet.

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Venus
So, 6 months ago JAXA (Japan's NASA) sent a spacecraft in the direction to Venus. The mission was to put the spacecraft into orbit around Venus so they could study Venus' clouds, weather and atmosphere. As close as it is, scientists don't know as much about it as you would think. Anyways, the craft finally arrived on Monday and there was a burn (a boost from the rockets) either Monday or Tuesday to put it into orbit. There was a scheduled communications blackout right about that time as well (similar to when the Apollo missions would go to the backside of the moon). It was supposed to last 20 minutes. Unfortunately it lasted an hour and a half. Seems that the burn did NOT put the spacecraft into orbit. In other words, they missed. :( They have re-established communications with the spacecraft, however they will have to wait another 7 years for the spacecraft to try again (if they even get the opportunity.

I feel bad for the JAXA scientists. They have had some stellar missions lately with sending spacecraft to go into Moon orbit and other pretty cool achievements. It guess it was time for them to have a miss. Still, I was pretty excited about the JAXA Venus mission since (as far as I know) it's been a while since anyone has sent something up there, and with the recent discoveries of water on the moon and ice on Mars, I was hoping they'd find something really cool... like volcanoes or liquid sulfer lakes or space chicks or something. Oh well, maybe the craft can be directed towards Mercury or somehow back to the Moon or something. I'm sure they'll use the craft for something but I guess for what is up in the air now.

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SpaceX

In other news, SpaceX is scheduled to launch their Falcon 9 rocket with the new Dragon capsule at the top today (Wednesday Dec 8th 2010). SpaceX is a private corporation specializing in space transport. With the Space Shuttle being ground for good sometime next year and the current U.S. space programs not really going in any particular direction, the U.S. doesn't really have a way to put peeps into space other than catching a ride with the Russians. The Dragon capsule is SpaceX's attempt to fix this problem. While it is flying empty today, it is being designed to carry as many as seven people. It's pretty close, not in look, but in concept to the current Russian Soyuz spacecraft or the Apollo command module in that it's just a capsule that returns, not a whole spaceship like the Shuttle.

I believe they were planning on launching on Monday, but they found a crack in one of the thruster nozzles. So, here's hoping that there aren't any other issues (like the poor Discovery Shuttle (STS-133) which was supposed to launching in November, but due to various problems including several cracks in the large external fuel tank is grounded I believe until February which might end up pushing out the final flights of the other shuttles.

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I don't think I have any other updates other than my wife is cool and I love her very much for being supportive and at the same time continuing to put up with my shit during this period of uncertainty.

1 sat I saw a couple days ago

While heading off to work Monday morning, the sky was fairly clear. So I went out between the houses and stared up into the sky for a minute or two. And I caught sight of a faint satellite going S to N almost straight overhead.

Here's the time-line for morning of:
Date: 29-Nov-2010 Monday

6:31 AM - IRAS - 4.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1983-004-A
This is my first sighting of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (aka IRAS). IRAS was the first-ever space-based observatory to perform a survey of the entire sky at infrared wavelengths. That's a big honking deal in case you didn't know it. :) Due to the infrared sensors, the satellite had to be kept at a temperature of 2 Kelvin. IRAS was in service for 10 months until the superfluid helium ran out and the telescope warmed up too much for it to be able to provide useful information. It found over a quarter of a million sources of infrared light. Nearly 20 years later, many of these sources still need to be identified. Using other data it gathered, it also discovered 3 asteroids, including one asteroid which is the parent of the Geminid meteor shower. It also discovered 6 comets. The satellite was put into orbit using a Delta 3910.