Satellite or what???????????????????

[StarLane]

I was at my friends place last Saturday night helping him out with his new 12inch dob. Not the best observe night as there was an almost full moon, just a setup and check all is ok with the new scope night etc.

I noticed a bright constant flash coming from the same part of the sky. It was flashing about every 8 to 10 seconds and almost stationary, it was moving slowly east, very slowly compared to regular satellites I have observed in the past.

We observed if for a good 30mins and it had only moved a few degrees. The flashing was very bright, I noticed it naked eye, not through the scope. Thought it was a plane at first becasue it looked like the white flashing stobe lights from a plane but of course it was not moving like a plane and it had no other lights like the red and green lights a plane has.
We had a look through the scope and it was visible even between the bright flash periods. It was pulsing dull light up and down between the bright flashes.

All I can think of is a satellite that is spinning. Every rotation a solar panel or reflective material was reflecting the sun straight down to us. We must have been in the perfect location for this reflection to hit us spot on, I was amazed at how bright it was. Never seen this before.

Was it a satellite??? IF SO, Why was it going so slow??? Is the flash a sun reflection that occurs when it rotates??? Do satellites normally rotate like this??? How many of you have observed something like this???

Calling all satellite experts.

[[1ponders]]

Maybe helicopter? :shrug:

[madtuna]

I spotted something simillar about 6 months ago at a club night.
One of our members managed to film it.
After much research we worked out it was a failed satelite.

There are a large number of them up there spinning rapidy and slowly making thier way back to earth

[jjjnettie]

Last Friday night I saw a similar one. Flashing every 8-10 seconds at about 2.5 magnitude. I caught the last 1/4 hour or so before it faded to the east.
Definitely a satellite. Must have been extraordinarily high up to still be seen at that time of the evening.
But it was moving very very slow.

[Kevnool]

Weather Balloon is probably the answer.....cheers Kev.

[Outbackmanyep]

Hi guys! I noticed a similar thing during the Eta Aquarids shower, see my post here:

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=31082&page=2

I wonder if my earlier post sounded similar!?

[Gargoyle_Steve]

I've seen this sort of thing about 3 times now - once at a Barambah camp, once at AstroRon's place, and once from my own back yard.

Yes they are satellites, moving very slowly due to the pretty high orbits they move in, although the sudden and "crips" flash makes them look like high altitude aircraft. One of these occasions there was very high atmosphere moisture which helped spread the flash slightly, making it slightly more noticeable.

We followed one of these satellites in my 12" dob on one of these occasions, through the scope I could count 3 dim flashes followed by the bright "naked eye" one, about 3-4 seconds between each of them in a repeating pattern. This 12 or so second rhythm repeated over and over until eventually we lost sight of the satellite behind some whispy clouds. Very cool and interesting aren't they?

[gary]

Hi Paul,

Chances are you observed a geo-stationary satellite. They are in very high orbits
and hence can be illuminated by the sun even very late at night. As they spin,
the solar panels reflect light back toward you every few seconds. We have
observed this routinely over the years, often at times naked eye. We have
observed the same phenomena whereby there will be a series of dull flashes and
then a brighter one as each facet of the satellite had different reflectivity. From
our latitude, I recollect we use to see one in Leo pretty regularly.

You may then ask, "Well, if it were geo-stationary, why did it move?"

The question is, did you observe it move relative to the local horizon or did you
perceive it seemed to move relative to the background star field?

As the Earth rotates, the stars appear to move East to West overhead. If
you watch the satellite in the eyepiece, it can be easy to believe that it is
moving East with respect the background stars when in fact it is the other way
around.

Best Regards

Gary

[StarLane]

Thanks everyone for your replies. That's just the info I needed.
Never seen this before even after years of observing, wanted to make sure it was what I thought it was. Looking forward to observing more of these interesting objects.

Cheers,
Paul.

[Outbackmanyep]

Hi Gary!
how do you explain my one that travelled from South to North? It looked like a sparkler!

[Gargoyle_Steve]

Very high altitude non-geosynchronous satellite. I managed to observe one of these at Ron's place last winter. I observed it moving from the low southern sky in a northernly direction, as described by my post here (observed Wed 20th June 2007, just barely a year ago):

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=21378&highlight=satellite+jewel+box

"That satellite ....... came into my view at 02:10am (making the date the 20th). It rose near enough to vertically from the horizon and passed just to the side of the Jewel Box in the view of my 13mm Hyperion, ie 68° field of view at 115x. It was quite faint even in my 12" dob, and it was taking over a minute to pass through the field of view. I tracked it for a number of minutes and it had still only climbed to the same altitude as Beta Centauri. So far my efforts in attempting to ID this object have not been successful. Anyone with any suggestions please let me know."

Calculations tell me that field of view was approx 35' across, and I seem to recall I followed this very slow moving satellite for the better part of 20 minutes until it passed level with Beta Centauri. This one, however, was not a flasher but was illuminated in a steady, if dimly, manner.

[madtuna]

Steve, we saw one simmilar about 8 months ago. Apparently there are a lot of failed/dead satelites that are not listed in the main stream satelite databases.
I'll see if I can find the info we found back then on them