A great observing evening yesterday (May 21) with shortly after each other 2 amazing binocular sightings. I was out visual observing for a 63 WSW culm. Terra pass. I knew I had observed a great flare of Terra before with such a comparable pass. And yes, indeed, it flared again very bright about -2 / -3. It's always when Terra ascents from the South from here, instead from more SE as most of its passes. This was not all; Terra was caught up in the same field of view by Yaogan 6 LM Rocket in a lower orbit, an amazing view, as it passed in exactly the same direction. It looked like a tandem, with different speeds of both components. A few minutes later, I pointed the 7x50 binocular at a satellite moving into the south. The reference star I looked at in the field of view appeared to be another satellite, so I looked for another reference star to determine the speed of both satellites. This new reference star appeared to be a satellite too! as I pointed out when seeing some real reference stars finally. All 3 satellites were moving in another direction from each other, they must have crossed approximately the same point. (so not a NOSS trio or so which I observed often and which move in the same direction. These phenomena really give you the impression how much satellites are really out there, orbiting the Earth. But next time when Terra ascents from the south with a WSW culmination pass, I will be at the telescope to get finally some images of that flare! Ralf Vandebergh -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/private/seesat-l/attachments/20100521/dab67973/attachment.html _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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