unreal!!!!!

[BIG BEN]

i headed out to a semi dark location last night in the adelaide hills, pulled over got out of my car sat on my bonet looked up at the sky (south) about 11:20 roufly and seen not 1 not 2 but 3 satelites travelling together in a bunch in same direction same speed the furthist one was about 10 degrees away the other two were about 2 degrees away from each other

(is this rare to see???)

at that moment i was totally thrilled at seeing this i have seen many satelites but three at once it was ausome!!!!!!!

but get this before i could even get my binoculars out this fireball of a metoire comes screaming over top (heading south ,south eastish) breaks up into 2 then dissapears lasting about 3 seconds.

and all this happened in about 1 minute i was totally gobsmaked

i was basicly jumpin up and down with ecitment at wat i had just seen and now i am totally hooked on astronomy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[leon]

Yep that will do it, that sure must have been a sight, I have never seen three satelites traveling together, and cant really tell if this is normal.

But I have seen a mighty fireball do exactly as you explained, but only once in all my years of looking up.

They certainly put on a great show, glad that you stopped at that time I bet.

Leon

[JethroB76 (Jeff)]

Big B,
My father and I were out checking the clouds about this time and saw three satellites (two close together, and one trailing slightly) as you describe, from Melbourne. From memory we saw them near Orion just before cloud obscured our view....we didn't see any fireball though..damn it!

[Ric]

That's all part of the fun of Astronomy Ben, some night you get lucky and the heavens turn on a pretty nifty display.

Cheers

[tsuken]

Awesome stuff

What perfect timing for you - no wonder you're hooked

[CoombellKid]

The tri-sat's how did you observe them? through bino's?

I saw something similar a few years back and tracked them in my finder
scope. Initially I saw one then two and then I noticed a third. I dont think
I could of seen them naked eye. But after further investigation. I was told
they are military sat's designed to take 3D images of the Earth surface.
You wont find them on heavens above. They were in a triangle config.

Good catch!!

regards,CS

[Solanum]

Funnily enough, from here in Mildura I saw two satellites one after the other last night too. Both quite bright, I saw them in the finder and managed to briefly get them zoom across the scope view too. Didn't see the third, again, I was looking at Orion at the time. No clouds here! Gonna be 42 tomorrow though....

I also saw two meteors go across Orion last night and one the night before. I was wondering whether they were part of a known shower? The one the night before was at least Mag -1.5 and probably brighter.

[beren]

Think I saw something similar at a club meet and was told they where US navy Satellites http://www.fas.org/spp/military/prog...s_andronov.htm

[JethroB76 (Jeff)]

We saw the three satellites naked eye, the third trailing one wasn't centred behind the other two, rather offset a little.

[IceAgeComing]

i saw the 3 satellites just then. All moving together. Likely same as what you saw. Also 2 shooting stars and another satellite traveling perpendicular to the 3 sats