Hello They Worked out what the Flasher is - Telkom3 a Failed Satellite .-
http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/telkom-3.htm - During the Mudgee Observatory excursion last Saturday, I was speaking with Rob McNaught and he mentioned that he thought the Southern Flasher was the failed Indonesian satellite, TELKOM 3.
Well, today I downloaded the Two-Line Elements (TLE’s) for TELKOM 3, for the date 19 January 2017. I entered them into Stellarium and plotted the path of the satellite at the times I photographed the satellite on that night. You can see that the path and times coincide exactly with the satellite.
The position of TELKOM 3 at 10:59 PM (AEDT) from Stellarium:
http://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au/peop...17_10-59PM.png
The position of TELKOM 3 at 11:05 PM (AEDT) from Stellarium:
http://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au/peop...17_11-05PM.png
Photograph of the path of the Southern Flasher on 19 January 2017 from 10;59 – 11:05 PM (AEDT):
http://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au/peop...y2017_Path.jpg
I also produced a movie of the satellite’s path with Stellarium. You can view it here:
Movie of the passage of TELKOM 3 on 19 January 2017:
http://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au/peop...anuary2017.mp4
So, mystery solved! The Southern Flasher is TELKOM 3.
TELKOM 3 was an Indonesian communications satellite that was launched by a Russian Proton rocket in 2012 and was lost due to a launch failure on 6 August 2012 (funnily enough, that was the date of the Curiosity landing on Mars).
For more information, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telkom-3
http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/telkom-3.htm
The solar panels were deployed, so presumably it is these that are glinting in the sunlight, producing the flashes we observed. - John Sarkissian Did this presentation .
