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

[Wayne Watson]

Having never seen a re-entry before, it's possible that I'm wrong. The time fit the 
expected times shown on spaceweather.com, 2:50 to 3:05 pm. The map provided clearly 
showed the rocket body going close to north to south. It did seem quite long. Oh, 
well. Maybe next time.

Tony Beresford wrote:

> 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)
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
                  Wayne T. Watson (The Wizard of Obz, Nevada City, CA)
                  (121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
                        Obz Site:  39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W
             (Formerly Homo habilis, erectus, heidelbergensis and now sapiens)

               "A man who is right every time is not likely to do very much."
                          Francis Crick, co-discover of DNA

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