I stepped outside this morning to look at the sky, and noticed a pair of satellites in formation. They were identical in brightness, about 4th magnitude, traveling northwest to southeast and passing high overhead. I followed them from Ursa Major through the tail of Leo, the rearmost passing just a few arc-minutes from Denebola. They were a couple of degrees apart (crude estimation, I'm at work and away from my atlases) and stayed in formation rigidly. Without going to a lot of trouble, can someone who follows such things ID this pair, or at least classify them? This is the first formation I've seen from light-polluted SL valley location. TIA. BTW, I'm wearing my new glasses, and this time I sprang for the anti-reflection coating. NOTICEABLE difference, I'm sure I can see dimmer stars (maybe up to 1/2 mag.) than with my old glasses, contrast is much improved, no glare, ghosts, etc. This is also my first foray into bifocals, I no longer have to constantly remove my glasses as I alternately focus on distant and nearby objects. These are the "progressive" lenses (lineless) and I find them quite good for astronomy, so-far. Also driving (can see the dashboard clearly) as well as eating (my food is no longer a blur with glasses on). __________________________________________ Yahoo! DSL Â Something to write home about. Just $16.99/mo. or less. dsl.yahoo.com
Chuck Hards wrote:
I stepped outside this morning to look at the sky, and noticed a pair of satellites in formation. They were identical in brightness, about 4th magnitude, traveling northwest to southeast and passing high overhead. I followed them from Ursa Major through the tail of Leo, the rearmost passing just a few arc-minutes from Denebola. They were a couple of degrees apart (crude estimation, I'm at work and away from my atlases) and stayed in formation rigidly. Without going to a lot of trouble, can someone who follows such things ID this pair, or at least classify them? This is the first formation I've seen from light-polluted SL valley location. TIA.
I saw my particular constellation this morning within a few minutes of 6 am MST.
Looks like you spotted NOSS 3-3. Information on it and the other members of the latest generation NOSS (Naval Ocean Surveillance System) can be found here http://www.satellite.eu.org/noss.html#NOSS3 with an overview of the entire NOSS program here http://www.satellite.eu.org/noss.html . I've seen the triples a number of times but they've always been so faint I've had to use binoculars. It's rather rare that they are as bright as you saw. I'm jealous. It looks like there's going to be another high pass tomorrow (Friday) morning. But I'm sure that since I plan on watching, they will have cloaked by then... It's to come out of Earth's shadow while in the bucket of the Big Dipped, pass down near Arcturus and set over by Jupiter. Since it'll be a morning pass it will probably start out as "bright" as it's going to get and then fade from there. Details: 06 Jan High Direction 05:11:38 65 N 05:12:36 79 NE 05:19:22 10 SE Patrick -- Patrick Wiggins NASA Solar System Ambassador to Utah http://www.trilobyte.net/paw/ paw@trilobyte.net 435.882.1209
NOSS 3-3 just passed over right on time. As they (there were 2 in the formation) passed through the bucket of the Big Dipper they were slightly fainter than Megrez which I looked up and found it's about mag 3.3. Easily naked eye. But less than a minute later it passed by and was slightly fainter than Alpha Canes Venatici which I see is mag 5.6. But then as many here may know, a drop off like that is normal for a morning pass (just the opposite of an evening pass where they tend to get brighter with time). Time for bed, Patrick Patrick Wiggins wrote:
Chuck Hards wrote:
I stepped outside this morning to look at the sky, and noticed a pair of satellites in formation. They were identical in brightness, about 4th magnitude, traveling northwest to southeast and passing high overhead. I followed them from Ursa Major through the tail of Leo, the rearmost passing just a few arc-minutes from Denebola. They were a couple of degrees apart (crude estimation, I'm at work and away from my atlases) and stayed in formation rigidly. Without going to a lot of trouble, can someone who follows such things ID this pair, or at least classify them? This is the first formation I've seen from light-polluted SL valley location. TIA.
I saw my particular constellation this morning within a few minutes of 6 am MST.
Looks like you spotted NOSS 3-3.
participants (2)
-
Chuck Hards -
Patrick Wiggins