Re: Triad NOSS (was NOAA)

finn@main.jetnet.ab.ca
Tue, 26 May 1998 11:56:51 -0600 (MDT)

Thanks to those who emailed me privately for posting the corrected info
about the 3 sats i seen were a NOSS cluster and not NOAA sats. 

I still remember the objects and the direction they travelled so here are
the facts as i remember them in the hopes of getting a positive ID on them.
I'll search the files for old elsets to see if i can find out who they were. 

The location was - 54.25N 110.11W 556m

Date/Time - The night of August 1/2 1997 between 0500 and 0700 UTC (23:00 -
0100 local time). I'm not exactly positive on the time but i did wait until
the neighbours went to bed and turned out their lights so that i could lay
out in my backyard so i'd put the time as 0600 and later UTC. 

Track - i first spotted them towards the north west, i turned my head in
that direction and there they were. They came from the south west and went
north east. The height of them at first contact was 30 -35 degreess and
decending as they headed north. By the time they got to due north they were
down to about 20 degrees or less and became invisible shortly afterwards. 

The Objects - There were 3 of them in what i'd say almost perfect Vee
formation, one in the lead, the other 2 about 10-15 degees behind with about
the same spacing between the 2 "wingmen". But i saw them at an angle so
please account for parallax error. They had a blue/green glow to them and i
can't remember which stars were nearby but the objects were easily seen in
some aurora haze present at that time.

Well that's all the info i have, hopefully i'll discover which cluster they
were.

Jari