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(meteorobs) Re: NOSS Satellites
Tony,
Thanks for the explanation. I was not aware that there were three groups of
NOSS satellites. By the way, my explanation of the abbreviation was
incorrect as NOSS stands for Naval OCEAN (not orbiting) Surveillance System.
Another mistake was my conversion from Universal Time to local time as the
group did indeed appear at 2:51am PDT. I should really get some sleep before
posting these summaries!
I did try again to spot this trio (NOSS 2-1) this morning as another pass
was predicted to occur at 3:57am PDT with a magnitude of +5.2. Unfortunately
they were not seen :-(
Bob
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Beresford" <dberesford@adam.com.au>
To: <meteorobs@atmob.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2003 10:08 PM
Subject: Re: (meteorobs) July 8, 2003 Meteor Observations from California
> At 12:16 9/07/03, Bob Lunsford wrote in part.
> > The highlight of the
> >session was non-meteoric. It was the sudden appearance of an old friend,
the
> >NOSS satellite triad. For those not familiar with it, NOSS stands for
Naval
> >Orbiting Surveillance System. It is a group of three satellites that
travel
> >together in a triangle-shaped formation. They appeared at 3:51 PDT in the
> >constellation of Pegasus during the playing of Strauss's Blue Danube. It
was
> >pretty cool scene as it looked as if a part of an entire constellation
was
> >being relocated in the sky. They were as bright as second magnitude
before
> >fading as they traveled northward.
> In case Bob's comments are confusing, there are 3 NOSS 2 triplets.
> Bob saw what is known among amatuer satellite observers as NOSS 2-1,
> the oldest triplet of the NOSS 2 series. The NOSS 2-2 triplet
> was also visible that morning from his observing site, at 04:03 PDT
> at maximum elevation of 34 degrees in the North East, going South.
> They are usually binocular objects, which occasionally are naked eye.
> Predictions for these triplets are available from www.heavens-above.com
> but you have to select them, as quite properly, HA ignores there
occasional
> brightenings so the dont get included in the standard daily predictions.
> Incidentally Bob it must have been 02:51 PDT -)(
> Tony Beres
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