Strangers in the Night

[APODman]

I opened this topic to post interesting pictures and videos captured on night sky observations with the WATEC Ultimate camera.

To start bellow are an animated gif with the meteors of meteor shower of the Eta Aquarids (a meteor shower most favorable to the Southern Hemisphere) captured at morning on 09/05.

I captured about 26 meteors related to rain although not on the maximum (day 06/05). It was interesting to note that until 3:30 a few meteors were detected and clearly they were sporadic, however as of 3:30 the number of meteors increased considerably, almost originated from region of Aquarius, the shower's radiant point:



There was also a change of the characteristic of meteors, they were brighter than the sporadic (average magnitude between -1 and -0 ) and had a much longer trail:



The highlight was a rare fireball (this rain does not usually produce fireballs) that "exploded" at the end of its path. The magnitude of the fireball reached -3.9. Video analysis in the software "UFO Analyzer" indicate that this meteor cross the sky at 231.7 km away from the camera and about 196km of altitude:



Below are the movie of this fireball ( I recommend watching it in full screen in resolution "720p HD" ):

- Rare Eta Aquarids Fireball


[ ]´s

[atomic7732]

Awesome. 

What's with "alfa"? alf Aretis b? alfa Aquarii? Is it some any-English-other-than-US thing?

[APODman]

Awesome. 

What's with "alfa"? alf Aretis b? alfa Aquarii? Is it some any-English-other-than-US thing?

Hehehehe, sorry, I edit the image and forgot to translate "alfa" ( portuguese ) to english


[ ]´s

[Naru523]

Very interesting. I'm surprised the city is populated (I think as far what I'm seeing) and yet you can still see some stars clearly.

[atomic7732]

APODman you should try to reduce light pollution in your community...

[Naru523]

He does live in São Paulo in Brazil, second largest city in the Americas, largest in the South Hemisphere, and the world's sixth largest city. That would take a long time..

[APODman]

Very interesting. I'm surprised the city is populated (I think as far what I'm seeing) and yet you can still see some stars clearly.

São Paulo it´s a Megalopolis with more than 20 million inhabitants. The sky of the district where I live are, in the best conditions, dark blue, not black. The magnitude limit here, when atmospheric conditions are optimal, is about 4 (and the star can be seen almost only with the corner of the eyes).

With telescope the magnitude limit are, with optimal atmospheric conditions, 7.5 ( the teorical limit magnitude for my telescope is 12 ! )

But I'm surprised with the sensibility of the camera, in this movies stars with magnitude 5.6 can been seen. But in a test in which I coupled it to the telescope I puxed the limit magnitud to the teorical limit. Stacked only 10 frames with time exposition of 1/100 s I got this image:
.

.
This camera it´s amazing !
.
[ ]´s

[APODman]

APODman you should try to reduce light pollution in your community...

Naru it´s right, it´s impossible to reduce the luminosity levels of a city that grows absurdly day after day and is known as  "the city that never sleeps.". Even my district are completely urbanized, with thousands of buildings fighting for space and height and to complete an airport at 8km from my house (Congonhas Airport)

But I have plans to migrate to Canada next year, maybe I'll live in Sherbrooke. According to my researchs, the city still has night light pollution conditions within of the acceptable.

[ ]´s

[atomic7732]

Nothing will happen if you don't try.

Check out the International Dark Sky Association.

[Naru523]

11.244.369 people...

*shrugs* Good luck on that.

[APODman]

11.244.369 people...

*shrugs* Good luck on that.

This is the population on municipy of São Paulo, but there are more  four big cities that border the city of São Paulo. But in truth these cities are already immersed in the municipality of São Paulo (conurbation) so that your population is counted as being in São Paulo, so the total population of the called "Greater São Paulo" are more than 20 million inhabitants.

[ ]´s

[APODman]

A mistery:

On the morning of 06/05 my camera captured a satellite that had a double flare, as shown in the animation below:



I thought it was a Iridium satellite but Iridium flares do not produce double flares and even the "Heaven's Above" site not indicated that some Iridium were in that area of the sky (Pegasus - Aquarius) at that time.

Two days later the camera again register the double flare from a satellite (this would be the same?):



I had never heard that other than the Iridium satellites would produce so bright flares, much less two bright flares in few seconds or minutes apart.

Could anyone identify this satellite?

My geographical coordinates are those:

Lat: 23°36'22.16"S
Long: 46°39'27.91"W
Time Zone: -3 off GMT
Altitude: 765 meters

[ ]´s

[atomic7732]

It'd have to be some satellite...

Did another flare in a similar spot occur on May 12 at around 04:25? Three times a trend... Remember that... 

You could calculate the orbit with your program thing, no?

[APODman]

I found what´s the satellite tha's cause the double flare, it´s not an Iridium but the satellite ERS-1:



- http://earth.esa.int/ers/satconc/

Special thanks to the colleagues of the discusion board SeeSat-L, Kevin Fetter, Makoto Kamada - who was that indentify the satellite, Björn Gimle and Ted Molczan who posted this interesting text about the evolution of the magnitude variation and rotation of the ERS-1:

"Carlos Bella's videos of the rotating/flaring UNID, identified as ERS 1 (91050A / 21574) by Makoto Kamada and Björn Gimle, prompted me to review its PPAS flash history.

Rainer Kresken alerted us to the satellite's failure in March 2000, which left it with a 10 RPM spin:

http://satobs.org/​seesat/​Mar-2000/​0191.html

Apparently, the fast rotation did not last long. In April 2000, Tristan Cools reported a "very slow tumble, maybe two or three minutes", and mag -4 flash:

http://satobs.org/​seesat/​Apr-2000/​0108.html

It has been reported as mostly steady in recent years, but may have been undergoing a gradual spin up. Brad Young has reported flares as bright as mag 2; four years ago he reported a period of variation of 25.3 s. More recently, and not found in PPAS, is Russell Eberst's report of a period of 7 s on 2010 Dec 12.

The latest PPAS record is available here:

http://io.com/​~mmccants/​bwgs/​ppas-2011-03.zip

Here are the 91050A obs from 2000 and later:

91- 50 A 00-04-07 21:05 TC tumble with mag -4 flash
91- 50 A 00-08-15 20:57 BD mag -2.0->5.0 slow
91- 50 A 00-08-30 20:58 BD 57 a, mag 2.0->inv, a
91- 50 A 04-07-27 21:42:36.0 BD 69.3 0.3 1 69 -1.0->inv
91- 50 A 04-08-30 20:24:12 BD 79.1 3 1 79 FF, 0.5->7.5
91- 50 A 04-09-06 21:29 BD lp, mag -2 flare at Az = 280°
91- 50 A 05-03-06 20:17 RE 60 a; R; +3.6->7.2
91- 50 A 05-04-10 21:39 BD lp; +5.0->inv
91- 50 A 05-04-11 21:03 BD lp; +1.4->inv
91- 50 A 05-05-08 20:28 BD 89 a; +3.4->6.5
91- 50 A 05-10-04 21:20 LB S; +5
91- 50 A 06-08-06 20:29 LB var, 5->i
91- 50 A 06-09-10 20:11:27 LB A; +5->inv; note b1
91- 50 A 07-03-14 19:40 BD mag +1 flare; +6.5
91- 50 A 07-03-22 20:01:52 LB A; +3->inv; 1 flare ony
91- 50 A 07-03-26 19:23 LB almost S; +5, 1 flash +3
91- 50 A 07-04-07 20:45 LB var; +6->inv
91- 50 A 07-04-16 02:05:45 BY 34.4 2.0 2 17? M; +4->5
91- 50 A 07-05-01 20:11 LB almost S; +5
91- 50 A 07-05-11 02:34:57 BY 50.5 0.4 2 25.3 M; +5->5.5
91- 50 A 07-05-14 02:30:54 BY S; +6
91- 50 A 07-06-06 02:25:40 BY S; +4; note b2
91- 50 A 07-09-13 01:46:00 BY Flare +3; note b3
91- 50 A 07-09-21 02:08:44 BY 33.9 Flare +2; neo
91- 50 A 07-10-14 18:54 LB S; +4
91- 50 A 08-01-30 01:10:26 BY Flare +2"

Text source: satobs.org/​seesat/​May-2011/​0202.html

More in: satobs.org/​seesat/​May-2011/​0190.html

And the a person of the same list ( Eddie ) gave me a indication of a great ( and free ) software for satellite passes forecasts (including estimates for the time for flares of Iridiums), the Heavensat:

- http://www.heavensat.ru/english/

[ ]´s

[atomic7732]

http://heavens-above.com

is another good one.

I saw a bright object today at around 19:55... It was going at, maybe 10deg/s and it disappeared behind what seemed was the Earth's shadow. After looking up satellites I came to the conclusion that it could have been a meteor. I'd estimate the magnitude at -2 to -3.5

[shikar]

Nice sharing thanks.It was really interesting.

[APODman]

Today at 6:03 (local time Sao Paulo, Brazil / -3 GMT) ISS made ​​a beautiful pass near the planet Jupiter (mag -1.. The space station was very bright (mag -1.1) and with a strong yellowish color.

I recorded the passage on video with the Watec

- ISS crosses below planet Jupiter

Below a "stack" of the frames of the film with the path of the ISS. Jupiter is the "star" shining under which the ISS crosses:




[ ]´s

[APODman]

I managed to register the reappearance of the star HD211434 (44 Aquarii, visual magnitude 5.75) over the dark lunar limb even with the heavy fog over the area.

The reappearance occurred at exactly  4h 21m 30s 335ms GMT ( 0:04s on movie)

Reappearance of the Star HD211434 (44 Aquarii)

The timing of the reappearence was send to [ur=http://www.lunar-occultations.com/iota/iotandx.html]IOTA
[/url] - International Occultation Timing Association

(The dark spots are dust in CCD sensor)


[ ]´s