(meteorobs) [West/SW] ALERT! .. Follow Up

[Tony Beresford]

At 07:37 14/08/04, you wrote:
>Well, at around 2:52 I picked it up flying from the north and headed off into ths southwest, or so it looked. It had a white tail about 5 or so degrees about 20 degrees above the horizon. I saw a couple of flashes as it got directly west. It took about 5 minutes to disappear into the SW at about 15 degrees elevation. My Sandia meteor camera did not register the trail. I did get some video, but knocked out a section by accidentally hitting pause when trying to signal my wife to come outdoors.
>-- 
>                 Wayne T. Watson (The Wizard of Obz, Nevada City, CA)
>                 (121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
>    

Wayne, the object involved is noted by SSC of USSTRATCOM to have decayed at 1702 UT , or 10:02am PDT, so 
thats one reason for doubting the identification of what you observed. The other reasons are related to
the direction of motion. This object was in 51 degree inclination orbit, it couldnt come in from
the North and go off into the SW, and the length of the sighting. 

 Though satellite re-entries can be observed for longer than meteor events, the maximum time interval
is about 90 seconds. 
Tony Beresford ( satellite observer since 1960)