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Old 22-01-2010, 09:03 AM
Coen
"Doc"

Coen is offline
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Adelaide, Australia
Posts: 180
You most certainly saw a couple of satellites. There are a large number of satellites floating around, most of which are no longer operating or are debris from deployments (e.g. covering panels).

There also was a very high altitude Anti-Satellite Test conducted where a missile was launched at a defunct weather satellite. It turned one large piece of space debris into many many smaller pieces and these are what I often see crossing my eyepiece FOV, problem is the altitude means that stuff is up there for a very long time. Before people get excited it was not the USA, they typically do their tests lower where stuff only stays in orbit for a few months before re-entry.

Download Orbitron and get the latest TLEs if you are interested in finding out what crosses your path - you'll need to know your lat/long and times. http://www.softpedia.com/get/Others/...Orbitron.shtml
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