What did I see?

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

I went outside tonight about 8.30pm for a quick scan for satellites. I thought I found one in Aquarius, just a flash of light, then it was gone. I kept looking, and 8 seconds later it flashed again, but in the same spot. It flashed about 5 more times, in exactly the same spot, then nothing more.
On my map, it seems that it was near a double star, 96, which is about 4 degrees south of NGC 7606.
Any ideas what it was?

[h0ughy (David)]

A geoastationary satelite, they rotate so you most probably saw it flash off a panel

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

That's logical.
Thanks mate.

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

That's logical.
Thanks mate.

it wasn't meant to be was meant to confuse and bewilder, but your too smart for that! (yes I know I will pay for that one next year)

[astroron (Ron)]

I usualy call those things a flasher but seriously what you saw was a rotating satalite with either large solar panels or are exaginal which flashed a few times before going into the earths shadow, sometimes if they are rearly high (10,000kms or more) you can observe them any time during the night, I see them on many occasions during all night observing sessions.astroron

[RAJAH235]

Jeanette, Prob. as huffy has said, a geostationary satellite. Orbit ~ 24,000 klm up.
L.

[ving (David)]

what magnitude would you say it was?

[beren]

Thats neat , never seen one before ..... the best satellite or rather satellites ive seen are the "whitecloud" US naval satellites , they form a cluster with one leading and three in formation behind ....from a dark location very prominent and very errie

Originally Posted by beren

Thats neat , never seen one before ..... the best satellite or rather satellites ive seen are the "whitecloud" US naval satellites , they form a cluster with one leading and three in formation behind ....from a dark location very prominent and very errie

Yup I have seen these except the ones a saw were a group of three, they are
strung together via cables 5kms in length. I think they are called NOSS from
memory they are used by the US Military to get 3D imaging of the ground
below. They usually travel in a trangle config, but some have broken free. So
if you come across a pair try looking a lil way ahead or behind and you can
usually find the escapee.

regards,CS

[fringe_dweller]

me too - we saw the 4 in a diamond formation back in '99 while watching a meteor shower in the early hours at a dark site. when i researched it much later, the first ones wernt supposed to have been launched till much later - 2000-01 i think? - so we saw an earlier secret version. they are probably mag 7 - 8 normally - so if you see them - you know you have very dark skies! interestingly when we saw them (5 of us) one of them veered of in a different direction after a while - Wild! at the time it freaked us out a bit - as we had no knowledge that they existed That is the only time we have seen them in many trips to dark skies - how many times have you guys seen them exactly? I have seen many ccd images of them on the net over the years as they are picked up easy on sensitive sensors.

[astroron (Ron)]

There is also a quartet of ESA Satalites running through the sky,and there is planned for more multple systems in the future. astroron

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

I reckon it would have been around mag.2 for the first couple of flashes diminishing to about mag 5 for the last one. The first flash was reddish, and I thought it was a plane at first.