Post by Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe on Sept 3, 2004 3:27:28 GMT -6
Strange object observed in the East by Astronomers...
This is going around astronomical forums now and caused quite a stir. An unusual sight was caught in telescopic eyepieces and naked eye by astronomers, mostly in the east...and looked like a U.F.O to many.
What it was finally determined to be, was a fuel dump by a Centaur rocket.
Here is the only actual image from the event that was caught by Eric Briggs.
Many accounts were posted. Here is one from "Starrynights" forum:
Around 9:00 EST (I am in New Jersey), I saw a large (maybe half a
degree) and very bright swan shaped cloud just south of Epsion Bootes
with my naked eye. It was moving very quickly NNE as it was in Draco
by around 9:15 EST. When I looked at it in my finder scope and
telescope, it definitely had one or two vertices and this cloud was
brightest at the vertex. Anyone else see it? Any idea what it was?
Another response was: I spotted it first at 9:03pm from my site in SE NY, when it was
already fully developed (well beyond that stellar stage you
apparently first witnessed). It was situated within the crown of
Corona Borealis, about 1-degree in diameter to the unaided eye, with
a rough total magnitude of 0 to +1. My impression with 10x50B was
that its shape was rather like an oblique view of a lily, with four
curving petals (your "X-wings" shaped feature) and a trumpet-shaped
appendage directed to the SE which grew narrower as it receeded from
the object's central region. Motion was very slow toward the NE, with
the object being centered within the head of Draco by about 9:20pm.
Slowly expanding in size, its surface brightness was steadily
dropping. By the time it reached Draco's head it was about 2-degrees
in diameter to the naked eye and very faint in the growing moonlight.
I ceased to follow it at 9:23pm, by which time on the "trumpet" and a
surrounding vague circular glow remained.
Based of such events I've witnessed in the past, almost assuredly
this was a high orbit burn or discharge from a spacecraft. I've also
heard a report from Ithaca, NY, about 9:00pm, placing the object not
too far north of where I saw it in the sky. The small parallax
suggests a fairly considerable Earth distance (a thousand or more
miles?).
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It would have been quite cool to see something like that around here. Gotta be at the right place at the right time.