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Nice videos!
I decided to look at the Sunday video in a little detail and so extracted 743 frames from it, starting at 378 (zero-offset),
i.e. 2021-10-10 22:25:10.656, covering the mainly clear period.
Using ImageJ to MAX-add the frame stack showed 14 GEOS away from the star trails. Further examination revealed a total of 26 flares in the 3h 10min covered.
Of particular interest is that three pixels of the video flare on two separate occasions.Counting from the top-left corner these are (247,485) at 22:32 and 23:20, (255,656) at 00:32 and
00:51, and (259,617) at 00:35 and 00:51.
The first of these appears to be flares from unconnected satellites: the 22:32 flare is from Es’Hail 1 the second from
either Intelsat Hotbird 13E or Intelsat Hotbird 13B.
The second double-flare consists of 5th and 4th magnitude flares from Eutelsat 5 West A by my reckoning.
The third pair are both mag 3 and could originate from either Intelsat 1002 or MEV 2 or, indeed, one from each.In the case of Eutelsat 5 West A, which seems to be responsible for both of the flares at (255,656), it is possible that the first
(mv = 5) brightening results from the general diffuse reflection of sunlight from the solar panels whereas the second, brighter, one is the actual specular glint from the panels. GEO phase functions having a peak either side of zero phase are not uncommon.The following shows the traces of the second and third flare-pairs
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Nick
A similar graph can be found in a short paper in Weather (2011), online at https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wea.857
Graeme
Graeme
Not a geo but a UK Ministry of Defence Space Technology Research Vehicle.
STRV 1D – launched 2000. Cube shaped, 100kg.
Slow moving: RA 8 arcmin/min Dec 2 arcmin/min.
TLE for July 19
0 STRV 1D
1 26611U 00072D 19199.70430212 -.00000234 00000-0 -21168-2 0 9994
2 26611 6.2386 128.2536 7356330 328.1965 309.8099 2.03355429138712Great Wading Demon
