Flashing Satellite out in the South.

[anthony.tony]

Hello has anyone noticed a Slowly moving Flashing Satellite -I first noticed it on 17th Jan.2017-about 9.50 till 10pm.The flashes vary in Mag. from about Neg 1 or 2 up Neg.4-It must be tumbling to create the Flashes.on the 17th it travelled down from south to east I watched it Dissappear behind some trees under the Crux.Tonight it was travelling south to East heading downward- came from LMC area- passed above The Eta Carinae Neb .I noticed it at about 10.57pm watched it till 11.07pm.Tony.

[Pinwheel]

Here you go- Tiangong-1 space station.

http://www.blastr.com/2016-9-21/china-lost-control-its-space-station-and-now-its-falling-back-earth

[anthony.tony]

We are pretty sure that Tiangong is not It - Tony- John Vetter Mudgee Observatory Has Imaged it -John Sarkissian CSIRO Parkes Has Observed it -Tony

[Benjamin]

Also seen it in this location on Jan 17th. Curious as to what this satellite is as well (if not Tiangong-1). Quite slow moving and the pulses were quite slow as the images show.

[glend]

Iridium flashes. Download one of the satellite trackers, like the ISS Tracker, they will show you the Iridium positions and times for you to catch them.

[fbk]

I witnessed a flaring satellite on the 17th at 20:21 that went from low in the SE towards N, where it disappeared behind clouds. It was about as bright as Jupiter, I was sure it was ISS which would have been the 2nd time in 3 days I'd randomly spotted it (earlier sighting confirmed).

But, when I went to confirm the sighting on heavens-above there were no ISS passes or Iridium flares that matched. The only satellite it could have been was mag 3.6 so I don't know how accurate the brightness predictability is.. it was pretty cool in any case.

[Pinwheel]

Well, if it's not listed you can bet it's some Spyware slowly coming home to Earth.

[anthony.tony]

Last night the first flash was at 11:36pm just east of LMC, getting fainter and only the bright flashes visible. Tonight if it is visible should be around 12 minutes past midnight with the first flash north east of LMC.- This John's prediction for Tonight - Tony.

[JohnG]

I noticed it around 2155 tonight, moving slowly and from my location it passed directly between the Magellanic Clouds travelling in a SW to SE direction, flashes were intermittent with some faint and others exceeding in my opinion, magnitude -6, there was also an Iridium satellite that produced a couple of bright flashes in the SE as well. Found out that was Iridium 39 and was visible at 21.58, flared to -8.3.

Have not been able to identify the other satellite though..

[anthony.tony]

That Sounds like it - Tony

[anthony.tony]

John Vetter Mudgee Observatory Spotted the SAT. at 10pm Last night

[JohnG]

Is there any ideas as to the satellite name at this stage, I have seen it intermittently over the past month or more. It is certainly not an Iridium, has totally different characteristics to those satellites..

[anthony.tony]

They are not sure What type it is -Tony

[anthony.tony]

Picked Souther Flasher up about 10.38pm- Used Canon 450D modded- 20mm sigma lens-got 2 images- Tony

[anthony.tony]

I waited and watched about 12.18am I counted 2 bright Flashes Heading south east above the Southern Cross If that was the second pass it would have a period of 10.38- 12.18 = 100 minutes. Tony

[Stefan Buda]

I saw it too on the 21st from St Kilda. My son called from Heathcote that they are watching something flashing in the sky so I went out and saw it for a few minutes as it was slowly heading down towards the eastern horizon.
Definitely not a LEO satellite - far too slow for that. Maybe a coms satellite that never made it to geosynchronous orbit and it died in the elongated transfer orbit. Judging from Tony's wide field images, I don't think the orbit has enough inclination to make it an old Molnya orbit satellite.

[JohnG]

Thought I picked up a couple of bright flashes out to the SE last night around 1045 or so, didn't see this satellite prior to that.. Was out a bit later and saw about 4-5 flashes heading SE to NW, thought it may have been an aircraft but a check with Flight Radar showed no A/C around my location at that time, just after saw an extremely faint satellite travelling NW to SE, not flashing though..

[OICURMT]

Closest match: Globalstar M053

http://stuffin.space/?intldes=1999-043D&search=GLOBALSTAR%20M053
https://www.space-track.org/basicspacedata/query/class/tle_latest/ORDINAL/1/NORAD_CAT_ID/25886/orderby/TLE_LINE1%20ASC/format/3le

[wayne anderson]

I was viewing NGC 2070 at the time it passed through so i increaced the slew speed of the scope to track it with 26mm Nagler and noticed it also had a very faint flash about half a second before the bright flash. It was hard to keep the scope moving at the right speed to keep it in the field of view, i lost it a few times but managed to view the very faint then bright flash sequence 6 times.

[Stefan Buda]

Globalstar M053, with an orbital period of 128 minutes is a bit too fast for what a saw.

[anthony.tony]

Hello John Vetter got some nice images here- from what he can workout it has a period of 120 minutes. reguard's Tony

[ripkirbyqld]

I agree with wane, the period of flash was 1.2 to 4 seconds and was tracking in a s.e direction. looked out tonight, no sighting. the level of the flash was varied. it almost faded out to nothing at times. by they the way, anymore news on the china station?

[ripkirbyqld]

The are out there!:eyepop:

[anthony.tony]

Clouded out 2 nights in a row -waiting for some clear skies. Tony.

[JohnG]

Likewise, went out at the predicted time of the GlobalStar MO53 pass but it was clouded in that direction and saw nothing..

[keioffice]

very awesome

[anthony.tony]

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/people/sar049/cwas/Path_of_TELKOM-3_on_19January2017_10-59PM.png

The position of TELKOM 3 at 11:05 PM (AEDT) from Stellarium:
http://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au/people/sar049/cwas/Path_of_TELKOM-3_on_19January2017_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/people/sar049/cwas/Southern_Flasher_19January2017_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/people/sar049/cwas/TELKOM-3_19January2017.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 .

[anthony.tony]

Orbital Elements Here TelKom3 -

[redbeard]

Very cool, an answer to the mystery.

Well done!

Cheers,

Damien.