Spacecraft burn/propellant dump at 23:06 UT, 2022-04-29

Forums General Discussion Spacecraft burn/propellant dump at 23:06 UT, 2022-04-29

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  • #609998
    Nick James
    Participant

    Denis Buczynski, Alex Pratt and others reported a circular cloud moving to the north last night at 23:07 UT. My video from Chelmsford is here:

    https://nickdjames.com/meteor/2022/20220429_230630.mp4

    There was a Falcon 9 launch from Florida last night injecting Starlink satellites into a 53 deg orbit and later there was a second stage de-orbit burn but this observation doesn’t seem to be consistent with that. It is a bit of a coincidence though and I don’t know what else it could be.

    On my all sky camera this starts out as a very bright point moving out of shadow and then expands into a fuzzy disk with a point in the centre.

    #609999
    Dr Paul Leyland
    Participant

    On Twitter Martin Lewis asked about this event. The thread is available at https://twitter.com/SkyInspector/status/1520183595167481856

    https://twitter.com/richard_e_cole/status/1520217320819507205 suggests that it may have been a fuel dump from Cosmos 2555 as the orbit tallies rather closely.

    #610000
    Nick James
    Participant

    Cees Bassa responded to my video pointing to this tweet from Jonathan McDowell:

    https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1520284820450025472

    It was the de-orbit burn for the Angara AM second stage launched from Plesetsk yesterday.

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Nick James.
    #610002
    Nick James
    Participant

    Paul, yes that’s the one.

    #610003
    Jim Latham
    Participant

    I also saw this from North Wales – an extraordinary thing to witness. Thanks all for the information.

    #610004
    Rob Januszewski
    Participant

    I was fortunate to observe this too, wondered what I was witnessing but guessed it was a satellite burn/launch.

    #610031
    David Strange
    Participant

    My daughter (non-astronomer) saw and picked up this this circular cloud during twilight on 21st April 21.31h BST moving eastwards across the sky. I guess it was also a fuel dump, but much more entertaining to suggest it was a toilet dump from the ISS!

    David

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