Themis rocket burn?

[loomberah]

At about 4:15am NSW time I noticed a small bright circle in the sky and took a number of photos over the next 3/4 hour as it moved across the sky and expanded. I'm guessing it is the Themis mission rocket burn to change the orbit and or release the 5 satellites. However the rocket exhaust plume is much larger than any I have seen before, and there is a swarm of small objects moving with, but expanding away from the central rocket plume.
pics posted on my web page: http://www.ozemail.com.au/~loomberah (http://www.ozemail.com.au/%7Eloomberah)

Gordon

[iceman]

Wow, awesome photos! What a sight that would've been.

Right time right place!

[[1ponders]]

Impressive Gordon. Well captured :clap:

[h0ughy]

wow is there anything you can't capture Gordon?

[leon]

Now that is pretty impressive Gordon, great effort.

Leon

[Ric]

Great stuff Gordon, now thats something I've never seen before.

Cheers

[loomberah]

I've been in contact with the Themis team, and they say it is not Themis, but: "This may have been the reentry of the second stage."
Now, I know what a re-entry looks like, and this isn't one!
Its a rocket burn (maybe 800-1000km?) above the Earth, and judging by the number of small objects expanding away from the burning rocket in the middle, things may not have gone too well.
If it isn't Themis, it may be a military mission of some sort, or some other space mission that hasn't been in the media.


cheers, Gordon

[fringe_dweller]

incredible images and observation Gordon! what a freaky sight!
I have asked over at meteorobs, if someone there doesnt have some answers/idea's, than no one does! I reckon ;)

[Mick]

Awesome photo, I have seen another photo of possibly the same object around the same time from a different angle. would be interesting to know what rocket it was.

[Astroman]

A friend of mine had taken an image of this quite by accident whilst out taking photos of lightning.
Thanks Gordon, makes sense now. Brings back memories of seeing Cassini's centaur stage do a fuel dump..

[Ric]

It's still an amazing photo Gordon and something I've never seen.

Thanks for sharing

[CometGuy]

Thanks Gordon, a fellow at work was asking me about as he heard it on the news this morning. I gather it was sighted by a few people on the Darling Downs. I must have just missed it as I was up around 4:30am this morning looking at P1.

Terry

[firstlight]

Hmmm, can anyone tell me why I can't view images on Gordons site with Firefox? I have to fire up IE to see any images. This also occurs using whereis, but I can't think of any other site that this happens.

Tony

[Maxie]

Gordon
The photos are excellent. I really liked those of the comet too. Unfortunately I had no hope of seeing it from my location as we had heavy cloud cover each evening.:(

Cheers
Maxie

[loomberah]

How unfortunate that you have to use IE Tony!

I use only Firefox 2.0 and can view it perfectly every time. I cant think of any reasons for FF not working there....

I've just been contacted by someone who was taking a photo of Crux/Centaurus and happened to record it by chance, it looks like a comet in his photo due to its motion during his exposure.

cheers, Gordon

[loomberah]

OK, its definitely not Themis, but it is an exploding rocket.
Briz-M or Breeze-M (I have seen it written both ways). The USAF Space Surveillance System detected reflections from over 500 pieces later on with RADAR.
I was the upper stage of a Russian Proton rocket that was launched in Feb 2006 and malfunctioned, leaving it partially full of fuel. For reasons unknown it exploded on Monday morning!
I'll try to get my animation made and posted tonight .

cheers, Gordon

[iceman]

Well done Gordon, graet detective work and great shots..

[Garyh]

Great work Gordon in finding out what happened up there..nice images too, havn`t seen anything quiet like them!!! I knew I should have stayed up later that night...lol