greetings earthlings, I'm hoping someone can help me identify my mystery object. I'm going to be a bit disappointed with myself if I in fact committed the error I suspect I may have, that is I may have mistaken polaris and delta ursae minoris for kochab and pherkad, and mistook caph as polaris. I have strong doubts this is the case, it was quite clear out on the night in question, and in order for me to have mistaken caph for polaris, there would have to have been some freak cloud covering the other stars in cassiopeia (also, delta ursae minoris (4.34) is quite dim from this location, the light-polluted south side of chicago.) if I did in fact make this error, then the object was iridium 59, which was on the exact opposite side of polaris from where my mystery object was at the exact same time, running along a virtually parallel path. I was out on the night of sept 1st UTC; as stated in an earlier post, I observed a pass by lacrosse 4 which flared to an unexpected brightness between 02:03:35 and 02:03:55 UTC. I was watching this with my uncle. we then caught sight of two unpredicted objects, one was iridium 58 which flared (unexpectedly since HA hadn't predicted it) at 02:05:05 UTC in capricornus; the second target I have been testing various objects listed on calsky for (down to 7th magnitude) and I can't seem to ID it using that program. the unidentified object moved from what seemed to me to be the zenith or near the zenith straight down between kochab and polaris, and on toward the northern horizon. an imaginary line between kochab and polaris this object crossed at approximately 02:17:16 UTC (plus or minus 4 seconds) and that same imaginary line would have been almost perfectly bisected by the object's path. that object was bright enough to catch my eye from my vision's periphery, and stayed constant in brightness as it descended in elevation. probably it was between 3.5 and 2.5 magnitude. if I were forced to say what I suspected the object to be, I would say iridium. but oh, please don't let it be #59. clear skies! stephan szyman chicago IL USA 41.6840N, 87.7000W; 188 msl ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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