(meteorobs) OT Flares from a geostationary satellite

meteoreye at comcast.net meteoreye at comcast.net
Thu Oct 30 10:49:34 EDT 2008


I've had two days of meteorobs I've been trying to post for the last two days more or less. It appears I will get them in shortly, along with a third from this morning. I didn't even try Tuesday, because when by 9AM we were getting heavy wet snow falling on trees with most of their leaves, I knew we would lose power. Branches were falling all over the neighborhood, and that was before the wind started. Sure enough, lost the juice for about 4 hours. Yesterday was better with only a rain shower, a heavy graupel shower, and heavy snow shower, so I didn't expect a problem, but apparently the 3 1/2 inches of rain from the previous 2 day's storm saturated the ground enough to have a tree go over. 6 hours without power.

Anyhoo, to the point. On the morning of the 26th, about 2:55 AM EDT (0655 UT) I noticed a star that did not belong. It was near the STA radiant, just below the pentagon of Cetus, near the western end of Taurus. It was below alpha and gamma Ceti. I assumed it was a satellite, but it wasn't moving!. No wait, yes it was, but VERY slowly, about 1 degree in the 5 minutes it was visible. I noted it on my tape, with the position. Research the next day made me suspect it was a geostationary satellite, and in fact I have tentatively identified it as AMC 18. I also observed it the next morning at almost exactly the same time, and at a position 1 degree west or so (relative to the stars). In actuality, the motion I observed was not the motion of the satellite (they don't call it a geostationary satellite for nothing) but rather the motion of the stars behind it..about 1 degree per 4 minutes along 0 degree Dec.

Finally this morning, I was still waiting for the clouds to clear so I went out in front of my house with binoculars to spot it. I saw it in binoculars from 2:50 AM EDT to 3:00. It was visible with the unaided eye from about 2:53-2:57, reaching a peak magnitude of about +3, midway between the brightness of alpha and gamma Ceti. At the time of the flare, the sun is about 50 degrees below the horizon, about 30 degrees off from being exactly opposite in the sky. I measured roughly 11 minutes of drift in RA of the stars in 10 minutes.

I did not know such events were visible (followup research as shown telescopic obs of geostationary sats are a niche hobby) but it was a first after a many hundreds hours of meteor observing. It was fortunate that this area of the sky has few stars as bright (only Menkar-alpha Ceti is brighter) and it was so close to the STA radiant, so I glanced over there once in while. That made it really stand out.

Just somethuing else to keep an eye out for in the sky!

Wayne in NJ


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