Milstar/Centaur?
Greg Roberts (grr@da.saao.ac.za)
Tue, 4 May 1999 14:58:13 +0200 (GMT+0200)
Greetings all,
Ive just returned from a short spell of leave and found this in mail I
had to deal with in connection with my astronomical activities at the
S.A.Astronomical Observatory. It sounds real interesting and may or may
not be related to the illfated Milstar launch on that date. I will quote
the report in full:
At approximately 8pm (Namibian Time)-9pm SA Time (ie 19UT) on 30 April
1999 we were looking at Orion when a small cloud began to appear off and
above Betelgeuse,approximately in the line of Sirius and Pollux of
Gemini.It began to get bigger and brighter so much so that I called
everyone to grab their binoculars and come and have a look. Within a few
minutes the cloud became almost rectangular in shape-approximately the
length of two of the stars of Orions belt and almost as wide. With Leica
8x42 binoculars I could clearly see at least three individual bright
spots appear which looked like stars.After a brief period they bagan to
circle and you could see the streaking of the circle- the streaking got
faster and faster until it became a blur and the size of the cloud
expanded until the bright spots burnt themselves out and the circular
disk formed around a bone shaped centre cloud. The bone shape elongated
as the circular disk expanded until it faded out and disappeared. The
whole thing took about 20 minutes and remained in the same position while
Orion continued to set. It was absolutely fascinating to watch and the
four of us were initially watching it through binoculars were spellbound
and we were able to call several other people to come and watch. We would
be really interested to know more about it.What was it ? Did anyone else
see it ? Are there any people we can contact who may be able to shed any
light on it ?
Our email address is gbs@iafrica.com - we look forward to hearing from you.
.... end of email message.
My comments: this could possibly be a propellant burn but what the
circling lights etc are I wont hazard a guess. The author of the email
message does not give his location - I assume its in Namibia somewhere
and gbs stands for Gavin Blair Safaris, so my guess its a safari trip.If
anyone thinks this is worth following up please contact gbs@iafrica.com
directly ( I would appreciate a copy of any messages for my own records
and in case we get any further reports - as far as I know this is the
only one the Observatory has received so far.
Best wishes to all,
Greg Roberts
grr@saao.ac.za