Observation of a satellite pair I was un-able to identify.

From: Kevin Flanagan (kevin@kevin-rf.com)
Date: Sat Apr 14 2012 - 03:22:00 UTC

  • Next message: Ted Molczan: "RE: NOTAMs for North Korean"

    Hello
    
    I have for years been a long time lurker. While I am not do not currently
    have the time to contribute I saw something tonight I feel is worth
    reporting. I checked heavens-above before emailing, and based on the
    following observation, I saw nothing that matches.
    
    My location (*42.4403°N, 71.7435°W)*
    Time a few minutes before 10:40 pm. EST on April 13th, 2012
    Through scatter clouds I noticed two satellites traveling south to north
    passing between mars and Regulus (one trailing the other by I would
    estimate half the distance between mars and Regulus) heading into the ladle
    of the big dipper between stars Phecda and Merak. I lost track of the pair
    just before they reached the big dipper. They seemed (which I am sure is an
    eye trick) to be wobbling as they traveled north, maybe tumbling and
    varying in brightness enough to appear as a wobble? The lead was brighter
    than the trailing satellite, I would guess (I am not good at this so use
    wide error bars) ~mag. 2.
    
    The reason I am posting this is, I could not find what appeared to be a
    bright set of satellites for my location and time that matches what I saw
    and it seems very strange that you have a pair of satellites flying in such
    close formation.
    
    I apologize for the quality and lack of an accurate time for the
    observation, especially if this is a well known pair.
    
    Kevin-rf
    -------------- next part --------------
    An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
    URL: http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/private/seesat-l/attachments/20120413/8e6e8fb3/attachment.html 
    _______________________________________________
    Seesat-l mailing list
    http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Apr 14 2012 - 03:22:34 UTC