Observation by Grant Privett: 2026-199B
Uploaded by
Grant Privett
Observer
Grant Privett
Observed
2026 Sep 15 - 23:15
Uploaded
2026 Sep 19 - 13:28
Objects
Spacecraft
Equipment
- SX Trius 694
- C14 + f/6.3 reducer
Exposure
15x 120s x2 binning
Location
Broad Chalke
Target name
2026-199B - F9 Heavy
Title
2026-199B
About this image
The Falcon 9 heavy booster upper stage that launched the Nancy Grace Roman space telescope is still visible, with a little effort. Its still poorly placed at -19 declination - right on my southerly limit (only half the mirror gets used) - but at about magnitude 17.4 (theres some variation) reasonably accessible. It was visible on the individual frames, but looked nicer when stacked on its predicted motion model - as shown above.
Its gradually fading and will soon become too faint to image. It won't be seen again for years.
The RST itself is a bit fainter at mag 18, so more of a challenge, but will be visible for at least 20 years, hopefully. The spacecraft ended up with more thruster propellant left for the observation phase than the design had aimed for.
Astronomy must be cool. With commercial-off-the-shelf telescopes you can see a man made object 1 million miles away. Thats astonishing and very different from when I started observing.
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Comments
JUICE will become visible until the morning of September 28, at a more sensible altitude~40 deg. Another challenge!
So it is going to be cloudy for the next 10 days!
Is it doing a gravity assist flyby? I hadn't realised.
Thanks for the heads up. I will certainly give that a go!
A not-very-well-updated JUICE calendar from ESA is here. This will be the second Earth Gravity Assist (EGA). The third and last is in late 2028. The science website is a bit more up to date and contains a countdown to closest approach here. JPL Horizons gives a closest geocentric approach of 15,400 km on 2026 Sept 28 at 11:45 UTC.
I got JUICE tonight (Sept 20.98) and it is currently around mag 20.5.
Deeply envious.
After driving to and from from a family get together under blue skies, clouds and haze appeared as sunset approached and grew to mostly cover the sky.
Interesting that it goes into eclipse for a couple of hours on the 27th.
Does anyone want the astrometry?
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