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Presumably this is an artsat venting fuel, can any one identify it? It appeared as a bright bifurcated oval ~10 deg long with a fainter bifurcated straight tail extending almost due north for 20-30 deg.
The oval was first noticed at an altitude of ~20-30 degrees, but it was already half hidden by a tree and disappearing below the north horizon by the time I had my phone for the pictures.
Only the last picture is close to being in focus unfortunately, but all show Capella at centre right and the 00:19:49 image shows the pointers (alpha and beta UMa) to top left.
The pictures were taken at my observatory near Newbury, West Berks and all times are in UTC. There is approximately 60 x 30 deg of sky visible, most of the sky was cloudy, with some clear gaps in the north and a few of the pictures show darker cloud in front of the oval/tail.
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I don’t yet know what it was but it certainly looks like propellant venting. Prompted by your post I checked my cameras and did pick it up. The screengrab here shows it and the video at the link below shows it slowly moving downwards towards the northern horizon.
https://nickdjames.com/Spacecraft/20250524_propvent/propvent2_20250624_001530_ndj.mp4
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Caught on our Auroracam last night at NLO
Thanks Nick and David for those excellent videos, both appear to show the artsat embedded in the glow still venting.
Peter
Think it was Space X’s Transporter-14, Mel Gigg captured a nice video of it. Alas I was in bed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDe-gmF1dxM
Steve – You were in bed? So was I. I thought you had an army of Seestars permanently monitoring the sky…
Cees Bassa confirms that it was Transporter 14. Presumably the upper stage deorbit and passivation.
Nicely captured, it was indeed the second stage of the Transporter 14 out gassing, my video below.
I’ll be down for your Astrofest on Saturday.https://youtu.be/RDe-gmF1dxM?si=HhPhO41c1mUL1z0u&utm_source=ZTQxO
Mel – That’s a brilliant video and it shows the various thruster pulses and the main burn very well. What equipment did you use?
Most enjoyable to read and see the various inputs.. As a Night-Owl checking this BAA [24/7] Facility.. when not certain of a happening observed visually or by camera in the skies.. I realise it is probably the Main reason for my yearly renewal..
On one Log-in.. I was delighted to see that Peter had displayed his excellent photos.. However with only a 4Meg camera running at around 6 Frames/sec.. at that stage.. I as always.. awaited Nick’s Identification details and inputs from other members..
Progressively as the inputs built up.. I realised that my camera.. screwed to my neighbours Fence-Post.. both pointing near-enough vertically upwards.. perhaps had background features to the definitive details assembled of the second stage of outgassing.
And I then wondered at what time did the First Stage of the Outgassing event take place.. particularly so as some sort of ‘disturbance’ was already in evidence at around 00:13:00..down in I guess the SSE
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