I was out taking photos of the sky tonight when at about 7.30pm I saw what looked like a bright ball of fog about halfway between Yed Posterior and Zeta Ophiuchi. It got very bright and I started snapping away. After a few minutes I got the 16" Dob out and it revealed what looked like a huge rocket burn. Two engines - at least that's what the plumes looked like - and a conical shaped stream of gas leading up to what I assume was the rocket end. It was slowly moving Easterly and then slowed down to fade after about 30 minutes. By 8.15pm it was barely visible as a mist in the 16".
Thanks for posting the pictures - I was driving home from work at around 7.40PM and also saw a "bright ball of fog". At first, I just thought it was a small ball of clouds lit up by the city lights...
We saw a similar event in 2010 at Astrofest, that was a rocket stage expelling fuel, I expect there will be an announcement from Nasa if it was.
That was the one Kevin Dixon and I spotted through our 16" scopes Phil,, I think Terry Cuttle was the only one to image it.
It was great watching the rocket move away from the first stage and the two parts moving through space.
It stayed around for a while till it mirged with the Milky Way and was lost too view.
Cheers
That was the one Kevin Dixon and I spotted through our 16" scopes Phil,, I think Terry Cuttle was the only one to image it.
It was great watching the rocket move away from the first stage and the two parts moving through space.
It stayed around for a while till it mirged with the Milky Way and was lost too view.
Cheers
that was somrthing special that night ron...seeing it from apoint and then flaring out we were watching it for ages...iv'e always wanted to see that again and raced out side last night but had missed it bugger.....
That was a great experience wasn't it Mozzie ,a bunch of people standing round in the dark amoungst all those big scopes and eagle eye Ron spotting something that shouldn't be there
That was a great experience wasn't it Mozzie ,a bunch of people standing round in the dark amoungst all those big scopes and eagle eye Ron spotting something that shouldn't be there
NASA launched the AEHF-3 Satellite aboard an Atlas V yesterday, its ground path would put it west of Australia at stage 4 (separation of aehf3 from launch vehicle) Ground Track is right, I am not sure if timing coincides.
If so, these images would also have been taken from the USN Diego Garcia Facility
NASA launched the AEHF-3 Satellite aboard an Atlas V yesterday, its ground path would put it west of Australia at stage 4 (separation of aehf3 from launch vehicle) Ground Track is right, I am not sure if timing coincides.
If so, these images would also have been taken from the USN Diego Garcia Facility
Liftoff at 08:10 UTC which corresponded to 18:10 AEST.
Ahhh, that explains it.... Cornelia (my wife) took some pictures outside last night and discovered this strange object, while going through them....
10s shots every 1m15s
Thanks for the clarification....
Cheers,
Christoph
Rocket Burn(?) This Evening
