OT Crazy old laser coot on tv..
DougD
just satellites..
So, if you wanna bit of a giggle, and see the scruffy old coot behind
this typing, go check out:
http://www.chtv.com/ch/cheknews/video/index.html
You want to select the news for Dec. 31st. I'm in the opening teaser
for a few seconds, then the full interview is about 1/3 of the way in,
I think the 3rd story right after all the drunken new years eve
revelers. And to defend myself, I was only given one hour's warning
and had been up all night, and was still transferring stuff to the laptop
as the video truck pulled up, no way were these folks going to see
"The good stuff" down in the black hole..
Hope everyone is having a great and SAFE New Years!
d.
Skywise
> Ok, that's the last time I tell anyone that I think some UFO's were
> just satellites..
> So, if you wanna bit of a giggle, and see the scruffy old coot behind
> this typing, go check out:
> http://www.chtv.com/ch/cheknews/video/index.html
What an ugly $&^%#$*#@!!!
j/k :)
Didn't know you were a sat hunter, too. I've been known to dabble
in the sport occasionally. I really slowed up when the gov't
made everyone register to get public data and said you can't
share it. I used to just download the allsat.tle files from other's
websites, but that's no more.
You on SeeSat-L? I've been there for 10+ but just lurk. Actually,
I've got a few thousand unread messages. :( Just not enough time.
BTW, anyone else notice in the drinking story the footage of the
532nm laser playing on the crowd in the background? Somehow it
looked a tad over 5mw.
Brian
--
http://www.skywise711.com - Lasers, Seismology, Astronomy, Skepticism
Seismic FAQ: http://www.skywise711.com/SeismicFAQ/SeismicFAQ.html
Quake "predictions": http://www.skywise711.com/quakes/EQDB/index.html
Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?
Ron
> m...@here.com (DougD) wrote innews:Uby%m.3853$Gf3....@newsfe22.iad:
>
> > Ok, that's the last time I tell anyone that I think some UFO's were
> > just satellites..
> > So, if you wanna bit of a giggle, and see the scruffy old coot behind
> > this typing, go check out:
> >http://www.chtv.com/ch/cheknews/video/index.html
>
> What an ugly $&^%#$*#@!!!
>
> j/k :)
>
> Didn't know you were a sat hunter, too. I've been known to dabble
> in the sport occasionally. I really slowed up when the gov't
> made everyone register to get public data and said you can't
> share it. I used to just download the allsat.tle files from other's
> websites, but that's no more.
>
> You on SeeSat-L? I've been there for 10+ but just lurk. Actually,
> I've got a few thousand unread messages. :( Just not enough time.
>
> BTW, anyone else notice in the drinking story the footage of the
> 532nm laser playing on the crowd in the background? Somehow it
> looked a tad over 5mw.
>
> Brian
> Seismic FAQ:http://www.skywise711.com/SeismicFAQ/SeismicFAQ.html
> Quake "predictions":http://www.skywise711.com/quakes/EQDB/index.html
> Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?
Doug
I really enjoyed watching your segment. You brought logic and clarity
to the report; and I learned about tethered satellites! It was also
fun to see the face behind the name.
Lostgallifreyan
> Ok, that's the last time I tell anyone that I think some UFO's were
Hell yeah, if they ever remake Contact they're going to have to get Dustin
Hoffmann, he's a dead ringer. :) You actually look a bit like Douglas Adams
too, a nice coincidence for me, I've been thinking and posting about him at
least twice in various places today.
I don't know that much about satellites but I know that some of the odd
things I've seen while out running at night were satellites, because they
correlate too well with solar light angles and such. And one thing I quickly
learned was that the variety of speeds and directions is quite large. I've
seen sudden changes in brightness, and modest changes in colour that could be
due to moving into regions where diffraction or refraction can account for
that. I've never noticed any travelling very closely together though. I have
no idea if tethered satellites orbit across the west coast of the UK. Any
chance you can tell me? :) Usually seen westward of 51.446798,-2.646170
shortly before dawn.
One really strange thing I've seen, and I'll indulge in this one cos this is
just about THE slowest day of the year, (including most of the previous one
in that assessment), was a pair of crossed beams of white light in the sky
over Truro in Cornwall at about 23:00 or so at night on a weekday (tuesday or
wednesday, in early summer or late spring, most likely in 1978 but maybe
1977). I was 11 years old (or maybe 10), reading late when I shouldn't be,
and in the habit of looking out of the window at times to see helicopters,
Culdrose naval base being not very far away. There were few clouds, little
wind, but enough to pass clouds across a partially full moon. That alone was
worth looking at at times. My parents were eating late, I could hear them
through a couple of closed doors between us. I looked out the window and saw
the beams of light. They were broad, like buttering seen on eaves only 5 feet
higher than I was, they were still, silent, and unmoved by wind. They
persited long enough for the moon to move from one quadrant to another before
I summoned enough courage to go to my parents about this. I made a small
point of being dramatic, because I expected my parents to dismiss this one
way or another and get me back to bed with expected rebukes. So having
decided the beams were staying thoroughly put for the duration, at least long
enough to show them, I pulled the drawstring on the large curtains covering
the big plate glass window in the living room, and watched my parents,
instead of looking out of the window. My mum was shocked into silence, barely
said a word. A small blessing really, as she was the one whose rebukes would
have been most unpleasant if they'd happened. My dad was interested, and said
they looked like vapour trails from aircraft. I told him I'd been watching
them fixed in place for an hour and a half, and he didn't press the point.
Given that there were two, equal in broadness and brightness, perfectly
perpendicular, it was obviously strange. My mum is very strongly religious,
which may or may not have played a part in her inability or willingness to
try to discuss it, either then, or since. Not that it looked like a cross,
they just crossed, thet actually extended as far as we could see in any
direction, either blocked by nearby house roofs, or in one case extending far
to the south over a distant copse. Two singular facts exist: 1. This thing
was aligned neatly on a compass axis, though whether map or magnetic I don't
know and can't deduce. 2. The cornish flag is a white cross on a black
background. The second is most interesting because it obviously suggests that
someone set up a display to emulate exactly that flag, over the city or Truro
in Cornwall. There are problems with this however. It was NOT a special
occasion, such an event might have occured shortly after dark on a weekend or
other date that specifically correllated with Cornish legend or history or
whatever date justifed such a celebration, but this was betweem 23:00 and
02:00 the following day, during a weekday that had no special note. No-one
else I asked had ANY idea it had happened, NOT something that corellates well
with a big special event. If it had been, other kids at school, or teachers,
would know. I'd have likely been the last to know, not the first, and
apparently only person to know. it gets weirder. My dad was once an officer
in the merhant navy, and had previously been in the Royal navy, I think, he
died aged 69 within a year after this due to an error in an operating
theatre, so most of his life is a mystery to me, but if there was some
obvious method of lighting the sky, his experience would have exposed him to
enough of it, and he had no clue about this thing. One of my sisters learned
to fly helicopters at Culdrose some years later, and I had since then asked
her about this sight, and she knows of no means in that locality by which
something like this could be arranged. I have always imagined that some big
arc lights might do it if co-ordinated properly, but they'd have to do it
over a region tens of miles wide with very high accuracy. I also think it
would be easy to tell which end of the beam the light came from, just as it
is easy to see on which end of a visible beam a laser emitting is is located.
These beams had no detectable sense of origin, they appeared as if they were
formed from cloud illuminated by the moon, a very different aspect from
headlights, torches, lasers, etc. This, after all, was why my dad said
'vapour trails' before he realised that their persistence proved that they
weren't.
Ok, way too long a post to go much further. The point is that I've discussed
this with a meteorologist visiting a university, and various other clever
people as opportunity arose, and no-one has explained it. Plenty of
indicators as to what it is not, but it remains as my own X File because no-
one has told me what it is, every explanation was east to dismiss because
nothing fits. I never sam them arrive, never saw them leave. They were either
there, or gone, and I never saw anything like them again. Every account of
anything remotely similar was different. Every picture remotely related
looked (and obviously was) something else. Maybe someone can give me an
explanation that is easy to see as correct but that hasn't happened yet, and
not for want of trying.
Lostgallifreyan
Skytracker arc lights, directional display type thingers.. I looked those up,
and have learned that such things are used in the city I now live in, during
special events. But that was mid to late 70's, I don't think such accurate
high intensity lights were common then, and those beams look very
directional, it's obvious when seeing the beams which end they're coming
from, and the crossed beams had NO such clue in either of them. More
crucially, a modern Skytracker beam is a piss-poor spectacle when seen over a
distance of several hundred yards, never mind a few miles. What I saw
rivalled the light of clouds lit by a bright moon. this I know because I saw
them at the same time. No artificial light I ever heard of can compete with
that in a display that crosses a mile or two of clean air. Not even now. So I
think that the light source was moonlight, and the 'beams' were regions of
humid or otherwise cloudy air that scattered that moonlight. But what kind of
cause can account for that? If this story doesn't bake your noodles as much
as it baked mine, you're looking at it wrong somehow.
Lostgallifreyan
news:Xns9CF4A2DA535...@216.196.109.145:
> buttering seen on eaves
guttering. I'll leave any other typos unless someone tells me they found
something incomprehensible. :)
Lostgallifreyan
news:Xns9CF4A43B8D7...@216.196.109.145:
One last (important) point. I watched those beams for hours. Suppose for a
moment that they were merely projected collimated beams. Now what are the
odds that not ONCE did something in the air pass through either of them long
enough to produce the comparatively brilliant flash or even more persistent
reflective or diffractive source that such interruption of a beam would
produce? Even clean air on a moderately windy night isn't so clean that
nothing in a period of three hours wouldn't interrupt the beams. If they were
beams it's likely that sparkling interruptions would occur many times in a
few minutes never mind hours, and they did not.
So again, if you're reading this and interested in trying to explain it, be
aware that plenty of effort has already been tried to do that already, so it
likely won't be an obvious answer.
Bob H
remember running outside as a kid when one went over head. Not many
in the sky back then. Now the sky's full of them. First time I
encountered a satellite tracker, he showed me a tethered satellite.
Amazing! Totally amazing. I'd have started on that track if I wasn't
immediately thereafter shown the sun through an H-alpha filter. That
sent my telescopic interests onto the light side, eventually building
the heliostat mount shown below, but satellite tracking is in my
future to. http://sites.google.com/site/bobspublicpics/_/rsrc/1251015557693/Home/ViewingCliff.jpg
Lostgallifreyan
news:3d1504a0-c9ee-4e9a...@c3g2000yqd.googlegroups.com:
Nice setup. I bet even Skywise will be impressed with that. :) Can they be
seen just by eye though? I haven't got money for a scope. (My next spend is
actually on shortwave radio listening, once dental bills and other January
bills are done..). One thought... I found a program called Celestia. Any
chance that something might be added to that to enable me to map NOSS orbits
and such? It's a 3D program so this could be very cool...
Skywise
news:Xns9CF4AB4839A...@216.196.109.145:
> Nice setup. I bet even Skywise will be impressed with that. :)
As Darth would say, "Most impressive."
I've dabbled in solar viewing, but a 6 inch Newt is mighty big
for looking at the sun. I fashioned a 2" aperture stop and used
two layers of optical quality first surface mirror as a filter.
I was mostly doing photography with only the occasional look
by eye, so don't shoot me over the dangers.
I'd like to try my hand at solar astronomy, Ha, CaK, but I have
too many hobbies as it is for the time and money I have. Heck,
I don't even remember the last time I pulled out my scope. :(
Brian
--
http://www.skywise711.com - Lasers, Seismology, Astronomy, Skepticism
Skywise
news:Xns9CF4A4DCDF...@216.196.109.145:
I thought maybe it was some British thing - like smoking fags,
using rubbers with your pencil, using a lift to get to the
next floor, etc....
Lostgallifreyan
news:GfN%m.41372$ex7....@newsfe05.ams2:
> Lostgallifreyan <no-...@nowhere.net> wrote in
> news:Xns9CF4A4DCDF...@216.196.109.145:
>
>> Lostgallifreyan <no-...@nowhere.net> wrote in
>> news:Xns9CF4A2DA535...@216.196.109.145:
>>
>>> buttering seen on eaves
>>
>> guttering. I'll leave any other typos unless someone tells me they found
>> something incomprehensible. :)
>
> I thought maybe it was some British thing - like smoking fags,
> using rubbers with your pencil, using a lift to get to the
> next floor, etc....
>
> Brian
Hell, even Johnny Rotten has come to see the wisdom that is buttering. :)
Lostgallifreyan
news:beN%m.41302$ex7....@newsfe05.ams2:
> Lostgallifreyan <no-...@nowhere.net> wrote in
> news:Xns9CF4AB4839A...@216.196.109.145:
>
>> Nice setup. I bet even Skywise will be impressed with that. :)
>
> As Darth would say, "Most impressive."
>
> I've dabbled in solar viewing, but a 6 inch Newt is mighty big
> for looking at the sun. I fashioned a 2" aperture stop and used
> two layers of optical quality first surface mirror as a filter.
> I was mostly doing photography with only the occasional look
> by eye, so don't shoot me over the dangers.
>
I wondered about that too, it is big. Though as far as I can tell, the bit on
the front absorbs most heat, reflects a clean but relatively small amount of
light down the business end, and as with any large scope, it probably does
amazing things for small details. Maybe I misunderstand the setup badly
though..
> I'd like to try my hand at solar astronomy, Ha, CaK, but I have
> too many hobbies as it is for the time and money I have. Heck,
> I don't even remember the last time I pulled out my scope. :(
>
Wow, that surprised me. Plenty of projects permanently stowed on the back
burner here too though. I think it comes with age, maybe we need to start
pulling some irons from the fire and retire them so the others get a better
go.
DougD
>m...@here.com (DougD) wrote in news:Uby%m.3853$Gf3....@newsfe22.iad:
>
>> Ok, that's the last time I tell anyone that I think some UFO's were
>> just satellites..
>> So, if you wanna bit of a giggle, and see the scruffy old coot behind
>> this typing, go check out:
>> http://www.chtv.com/ch/cheknews/video/index.html
>
>What an ugly $&^%#$*#@!!!
>
>j/k :)
Well, I kinda gave that as a warning in my post... In all my years
I've yet to meet any "laser" folks that would qualify as male models..
We tend to look a lot more like that albino in The DaVinci Code..
>
>Didn't know you were a sat hunter, too. I've been known to dabble
>in the sport occasionally. I really slowed up when the gov't
>made everyone register to get public data and said you can't
>share it. I used to just download the allsat.tle files from other's
>websites, but that's no more.
>
>You on SeeSat-L? I've been there for 10+ but just lurk. Actually,
>I've got a few thousand unread messages. :( Just not enough time.
I occasionally poke around there in lurk mode as well. For the most
part, I get most data off of Heaven's Above, they're just such a good
and huge resource for this stuff, and their prediction software is pretty
dang amazing and accurate. Every once and a while I think they get
some odd glitch that will throw off some sightings for a few days, but
they are rare! That, and Starry Night Pro make a good pair of tools
for planning any observations, I can get any two line sat. description
out of HA, and then plug that into SNP to get a real time model of
the pass data. SNP has a good internal database itself, but for the
spy sats, they steer clear of them, and even HA doesn't make them
readily available. IF you can find the name of the sat, or the orificul
govt. numbers, you can poke them into HA database and it will come
back with the two line info as well as a few months of predictions, just
as if you were asking for the ISS, etc. That and the ability to keep huge
location lists that you can call up quickly make it a great tool.
>
>BTW, anyone else notice in the drinking story the footage of the
>532nm laser playing on the crowd in the background? Somehow it
>looked a tad over 5mw.
I had noticed that, will have to go back and check that out, not sure
if that's actually a local club they were showing, or some stock footage.
d.
DougD
>Doug
>I really enjoyed watching your segment. You brought logic and clarity
>to the report; and I learned about tethered satellites! It was also
>fun to see the face behind the name.
Thanks! Actually, I think I may have blown the answer in regards to the
tethered sats. I said something like 1-2 kilometers and I think they are
much longer than that, as they say, I had a brain fart.. Considering the
conditions were perfect at that moment for me to just pass out live
on tv, well, I did ok..
d.
DougD
>Hell yeah, if they ever remake Contact they're going to have to get Dustin
>Hoffmann, he's a dead ringer. :) You actually look a bit like Douglas Adams
>too, a nice coincidence for me, I've been thinking and posting about him at
>least twice in various places today.
Actually, and not to sound like a complete prick, but I've heard about
the resemblence to Doug Adams before, and from someone that
knew him, so that's kinda wierd.. will have to go look for myself I guess.
>I don't know that much about satellites but I know that some of the odd
>things I've seen while out running at night were satellites, because they
>correlate too well with solar light angles and such. And one thing I quickly
>learned was that the variety of speeds and directions is quite large. I've
>seen sudden changes in brightness, and modest changes in colour that could be
>due to moving into regions where diffraction or refraction can account for
>that. I've never noticed any travelling very closely together though. I have
>no idea if tethered satellites orbit across the west coast of the UK. Any
>chance you can tell me? :) Usually seen westward of 51.446798,-2.646170
>shortly before dawn.
If you can give me a name of a fairly large village, city or town in that area
it will make it easier to plug in and get some idea.
>
>One really strange thing I've seen, and I'll indulge in this one cos this is
>just about THE slowest day of the year, (including most of the previous one
>in that assessment), was a pair of crossed beams of white light in the sky
>over Truro in Cornwall at about 23:00 or so at night on a weekday (tuesday or
>wednesday, in early summer or late spring, most likely in 1978 but maybe
>1977). I was 11 years old (or maybe 10), reading late when I shouldn't be,
snip
>formed from cloud illuminated by the moon, a very different aspect from
>headlights, torches, lasers, etc. This, after all, was why my dad said
>'vapour trails' before he realised that their persistence proved that they
>weren't.
>
>Ok, way too long a post to go much further. The point is that I've discussed
>this with a meteorologist visiting a university, and various other clever
>people as opportunity arose, and no-one has explained it. Plenty of
>indicators as to what it is not, but it remains as my own X File because no-
>one has told me what it is, every explanation was east to dismiss because
>nothing fits. I never sam them arrive, never saw them leave. They were either
>there, or gone, and I never saw anything like them again. Every account of
>anything remotely similar was different. Every picture remotely related
>looked (and obviously was) something else. Maybe someone can give me an
>explanation that is easy to see as correct but that hasn't happened yet, and
>not for want of trying.
Well, just waay too many things to think what it could be. I can say that
there has been all sorts of odd experiments done in the UK with all sorts
of very high powered lighting, etc. having to do with cold war efforts, there
have been lots of UFO reports around some of the many nuke sites that
were active at that time. And lots of those involved beams of light.
Oh, shite, gottta scoot, more on this later..
d.
Dave
>. I was 11 years old (or maybe 10), reading late when I shouldn't be,
> and in the habit of looking out of the window at times to see helicopters,
> Culdrose naval base being not very far away.
Being it was near a Naval base, I would say it's a highly classified
experimental aircraft of the area 51 type..
(I love the way to express yourself.. you had me at hello...:)
cheers
Dave
> I don't even remember the last time I pulled out my scope. :(
Oh Gosh! Have you tried eHarmony?
j/k ;)
DougD
Well, back then there was no shortage of all sorts of odd projects where
they would lay down clouds of barium, phosphorus, and other chemical
cocktails to do experiments with ground tracking, or even worse, doping
them with virus's, etc. I've looked up many times in night sky here and
have seen perfectly straight vapor trails in all sorts of odd groupings,
including grids and criss-cross. This island lays under the polar route
to Asia, so there's always high altitude stuff heading every which
way, and some of these do appear to almost glow, depending on
the moon, background light, etc..
That the beams you saw appeared very straight, I suspect that they
were fairly high up. I've run way too many ground based laser shows,
etc. and low beams overhead have this very strange effect of appearing
to curve as they pass overhead, even more so if they go beyond the
horizon. As the beams get higher up, that curving effect lessens..
d.
DougD
Very nice setup!!!
And yeah, I've been working out some sat. tracking hardware myself. I've got
some quadrant detectors here that I'd like to put to work, just have to figure
out how to put them into the loop of whatever drive system I come up with..
Or maybe just luck out and find some surplus setup all ready to go, I know
NASA and the Air Force bought and sold those things by the ton..
d.
DougD
>Nice setup. I bet even Skywise will be impressed with that. :) Can they be
>seen just by eye though? I haven't got money for a scope. (My next spend is
>actually on shortwave radio listening, once dental bills and other January
>bills are done..). One thought... I found a program called Celestia. Any
>chance that something might be added to that to enable me to map NOSS orbits
>and such? It's a 3D program so this could be very cool...
Look through the documentation and see if they allow plugging in to the
database. The kinda standard for this is a two line description of an objects
orbit and other bits, and if that program will accept them, they can be found
on Heaven's Above, or I can get them for you and post here or email them
to you.
d.
DougD
Oh god, that just put some coffee up my nobe....
funny!!!
d.
Skywise
49b5a1...@r12g2000vbm.googlegroups.com:
Thanks. I needed a laugh.... :)
Now, when I say I have a six inch, I don't mean long. Can eHarmony
help with THAT?
But on a slightly more serious note, I have seen ads in places like
Astronomy and Scientific American for dating sites that cater to
geeks, nerds, and otherwise excessively intelligent folk. hmmmm....
Skywise
> And yeah, I've been working out some sat. tracking hardware myself. I've
> got some quadrant detectors here that I'd like to put to work, just have
> to figure out how to put them into the loop of whatever drive system I
> come up with.. Or maybe just luck out and find some surplus setup all
> ready to go, I know NASA and the Air Force bought and sold those things
> by the ton..
Some scopes can take input from a computer for tracking objects
from programs like Starry Night. Some setups will allow the
software to send real time positions of satellites to the scope
and if it's not moving too fast, the scope will track it pertty
good. Not sure how smooth, though, but I've heard it being done.
DougD
>But on a slightly more serious note, I have seen ads in places like
>Astronomy and Scientific American for dating sites that cater to
>geeks, nerds, and otherwise excessively intelligent folk. hmmmm....
>
>Brian
As it was said "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member"
But even geeks need love, lens cleaner, solder, a new 'scope, oh hell,
love can wait.. All a matter of priorities..
d.
DougD
>m...@here.com (DougD) wrote in news:ynS%m.3635$XU....@newsfe03.iad:
>
>> And yeah, I've been working out some sat. tracking hardware myself. I've
>> got some quadrant detectors here that I'd like to put to work, just have
>> to figure out how to put them into the loop of whatever drive system I
>> come up with.. Or maybe just luck out and find some surplus setup all
>> ready to go, I know NASA and the Air Force bought and sold those things
>> by the ton..
>
>Some scopes can take input from a computer for tracking objects
>from programs like Starry Night. Some setups will allow the
>software to send real time positions of satellites to the scope
>and if it's not moving too fast, the scope will track it pertty
>good. Not sure how smooth, though, but I've heard it being done.
>
Yup, I've seen a few demo's from our local 'scope dealer, there's
lots of nifty stuff out now, and also some consumer grade optical
trackers, they're fairly new, but available if you have the $$.
I worked on a tracker years ago that could move a follow spot
or other motion lighting system to follow an IR beacon that a
perfomer could wear. It worked pretty good, but could also
loose it's target now and then, I'm hoping that I still have most
of the guts of that in storage somewhere that I can kludge
together with the quad detector (basically same device used
on the lighting tracker).. It's not so much of even needing to
be that fast, just steady, so some good software control would
take care of that, not my strong point..
d.
Dave
> Now, when I say I have a six inch, I don't mean long. Can eHarmony
> help with THAT?
Aha, Girth... Smithsonian may want to speak with you..
I sold my Newtonian years ago. An 80's Tasko, (TRASHCO) make in japan.
I like to think it was donated to; science..... uugg....
I was hooked the first time I spotted Saturn, simply stunning and
amazing! (you never forget your first) But space didn't allow it. I
had many projects at the time & no place to park it.
>
> But on a slightly more serious note, I have seen ads in places like
> Astronomy and Scientific American for dating sites that cater to
> geeks, nerds, and otherwise excessively intelligent folk. hmmmm....
I think, I qualify for at least one of those..;)
Lostgallifreyan
Well done, most people shy away from this one like I suddenly started
sprouting tendrils from my forehead if I talk about it, which is why I don't
do it much. And, you're the first person (despite others including experts)
to realise the apparent height and scale of the thing without actually being
there. That's exactly what struck me most forcibly. It wasn't a light show,
it was majestic with no sense of curvature other than continuation with the
sky that passed overhead. It had the same scale as the sky itself, as far as
our ground-based perspective allowed us to see of it. But that's what bothers
me. Straight, perpendicular, equal in intensity, and very obviously part of
one event or phenomenon. On the face of it, it looks like pure large scale X-
File material. How does a person live with something like that? The only
answer I have is this: never pretend it didn't happen, no matter what else
you do.
I like the idea of barium or other fine particulate. Trouble is, to be there,
constant, for about three hours, then be gone like I missed the switch,
doesn't fit with that. If drawn out by jet stream I'd expect undulations,
rarifications, the kind of stuff I spent much of those hours watching out for
and failing to see.. Two perpendicular jet streams seem a tad unlikely to me
too. These 'beams' appeared to clearly have the same high altitude. One thing
I can tell you: despite the extreme and obviously transcendent strangeness of
it, it didn't scare me, and awe is a fairly transient feeling, and once it
persisted I spent some of the time trying to read a book! Mostly I was just
conscious that I had a limited time to try to understand it, and didn't know
how to make best use of it, hence going to my parents to get them to see it.
Now I regret not climbing out of the window, but I already knew it was a high
altitude thing, just the change of perpective in seeing it out of the other
window helped confirm that, so short of waking up the neighbourhood, what
could I do, at age 10?
My best shot is that something caused a region of the atmosphere to cool or
otherwise become capable of scattering light, and the means could be switched
on and off, and aimed, at will. But the scale and method of doing that
doesn't seem to fit with any known technical capability. Maybe not
independently, and certainly not together. Only one vaguely possible
exception seems to it, ultrasonic misting. That can definitely work on
efficiency grounds, such mist would form within region, and clear the moment
the wind carried that bit of air beyond it, and on that scale it would appear
exactlas it did, but only if ultrasonic sound could be directed accurately
into such a huge configuration. I can't see how, and never mind why... Maybe
there are mechanisms by which Earth's magnetic field can provide the energy
to do this and that could explain the orientation, but that idea doesn't
answer any questions, it just prompts lots of new ones.
Re the other post you answered, I'll take a look at Celestia and see if it
will do what it needs to for satellite orbit mapping. Database as in NOSS? I
wouldn't know because database formats vary, and I know little about them. I
know people have imported things into Celestia though, though. Apparently
even things like models of the Enterprise. :) Mostly high res nebulae and
such though. What I'll look for is something like the ISS, if that got
modelled and imported, then satellites should be doable, though likely beyond
me.
Lostgallifreyan
news:Xns9CF58231F33...@216.196.109.145:
> Re the other post you answered, I'll take a look at Celestia and see if
> it will do what it needs to for satellite orbit mapping. Database as in
> NOSS? I wouldn't know because database formats vary, and I know little
> about them. I know people have imported things into Celestia though,
> though. Apparently even things like models of the Enterprise. :) Mostly
> high res nebulae and such though. What I'll look for is something like
> the ISS, if that got modelled and imported, then satellites should be
> doable, though likely beyond me.
>
Actually Doug, I was wondering if your current setup tells me if there's
anything interesting I might see by eye at location 51.446798,-2.646170 :)
Lostgallifreyan
> In article <Xns9CF4A2DA535...@216.196.109.145>,
> Lostgallifreyan <no-...@nowhere.net> wrote:
>
>>Hell yeah, if they ever remake Contact they're going to have to get
>>Dustin Hoffmann, he's a dead ringer. :) You actually look a bit like
>>Douglas Adams too, a nice coincidence for me, I've been thinking and
>>posting about him at least twice in various places today.
>
> Actually, and not to sound like a complete prick, but I've heard about
> the resemblence to Doug Adams before, and from someone that
> knew him, so that's kinda wierd.. will have to go look for myself I
> guess.
>
I think he was fatter though. :) Definitely similar to Hoffman too though.
Either him or someone my memory isn't organised enough to recall.
>>I don't know that much about satellites but I know that some of the odd
>>things I've seen while out running at night were satellites, because
>>they correlate too well with solar light angles and such. And one thing
>>I quickly learned was that the variety of speeds and directions is quite
>>large. I've seen sudden changes in brightness, and modest changes in
>>colour that could be due to moving into regions where diffraction or
>>refraction can account for that. I've never noticed any travelling very
>>closely together though. I have no idea if tethered satellites orbit
>>across the west coast of the UK. Any chance you can tell me? :) Usually
>>seen westward of 51.446798,-2.646170 shortly before dawn.
>
> If you can give me a name of a fairly large village, city or town in
> that area it will make it easier to plug in and get some idea.
>
Sorry, missed this or my second post just now wouldn't have happened. That
location is just south(ish) of Bristol, UK. Ashton court estate, north and
uphill of a village called Long Ashton. Perhaps closer to a hamlet called
Failand, where there is a very small domed observatory....
Exactly so. All I could really think of was all the things it couldn't be. :)
I am actually very sceptical about the whole UFO thing, and the reason is
simple. Once you really see something strange, the last thing you want is to
wade through the poor signal to noise ratio of the whole UFO thing... I enjoy
the whole UFO thing too, at times, but only at the same level at which I
enjoy a ghost story.
Cold war... possibly. But also there are strong directional sources of
microwaves, at Goonhilly Downs, etc. Cornwall has a lot of that stuff. But
that way lie the Lone Gunmen. :) This is another minefield in which I do not
tread. I tend to think that all the means that might have done it were too
busy doing something else far more explicable. If it was human-made, it must
have cost someone a LOT of money, and it wasn't exactly discreet.
Lostgallifreyan
beb701...@p32g2000vbi.googlegroups.com:
I do try. :) That's also related to thia actually. I learned FAST that if you
are trying to convey something clearly when it is bound to be hard to accept,
the first rule is to get the thought and language in order. This happened
when I was young enough to have it strongly affect subsequent priorites and
abilities. I won't deny that it affected ne very strongly. Perhaps as strong
as the early death of my dad, and maybe even more.
Won't be actual area 51 stuff though, that's the Lone Gunman stuff I avoid.
What is weird is that twice I have had connections with people who worked at
Culdrose (one sister, learning to fly helicopters, and one woman who was a
Wren there many years earlier). Neither of them have any idea about this. The
night was calm though, little wind, just enough to move clouds around, and
not many of those either. Helicopters only flew around up there on stormy
nights, they were for search and rescue.. But I still think someone in such a
base must have seen that thing, anyone whose business it is to watch the sky
would have seen it. But who to ask? And who would tell me even if they had? I
figure that posting this here is better than other places on the net, where I
might at least have some chance of a radio or optics engineer's input. Most
places I'd just find reports of raining frogs and other stuff that means
nothing to me. I'm not Mulder. My interest is very specific. :)
Lostgallifreyan
Looked ok to me, though I looked up tethered sats and read that apparently
there are none up there right now that could fit the description. Not that
I'd know, I just read that the last one that might fit snapped its tether
during deployment a few years ago. My source was Wikipedia, and though I
respect it I don't assume it's correct on anything, on its own, especially if
info it needs as source isn't being published.
Ron
You did great!
Speaking of satellites: A while ago I came to the realization (making
rather crude estimates about orbital velocity and height) that even at
the speed of light (e.g., with a laser) you would have to aim many
feet in front of a high orbiting satellite in order for the beam of
light to arrive at the same place and time as the satellite (also
neglecting beam degradation due to atmospheric effects). Somehow that
still doesn't seem quite right to me.
Ron
Lostgallifreyan
I don't know enough yet to know what is doable but I had a look at Celestia's
page at http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/satellites.php and I see
three packages by Thomas Guilpain. I grabbed the 'eccentric satellites'
package and looked inside, it shows data in text format, and says the source
was http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/. If a simple text format conversion
is needed I can do that easily enough, but I don't know anything beyond what
I've said here.. I suspect that there's no direct or simple way to do this,
partly because Celestia is based on image imports and models and apart from
kludging one model to a new database I know nothing about, I have no idea
what to try,
DougD
>I like the idea of barium or other fine particulate. Trouble is, to be there,
>constant, for about three hours, then be gone like I missed the switch,
>doesn't fit with that. If drawn out by jet stream I'd expect undulations,
>rarifications, the kind of stuff I spent much of those hours watching out for
>and failing to see.. Two perpendicular jet streams seem a tad unlikely to me
>too. These 'beams' appeared to clearly have the same high altitude. One thing
>I can tell you: despite the extreme and obviously transcendent strangeness of
>it, it didn't scare me, and awe is a fairly transient feeling, and once it
>persisted I spent some of the time trying to read a book! Mostly I was just
>conscious that I had a limited time to try to understand it, and didn't know
>how to make best use of it, hence going to my parents to get them to see it.
>Now I regret not climbing out of the window, but I already knew it was a high
>altitude thing, just the change of perpective in seeing it out of the other
>window helped confirm that, so short of waking up the neighbourhood, what
>could I do, at age 10?
Well, I know that there all sorts of high alt. phenom that have to due with
different temperature layers, high low pressure variants, all that stuff.
We had a demo we did at LM where they hired some skywriters to
fly over West LA and lay down some clouds that they were going to
do some laser projecting on, and they had a big problem of being
right at some "wall" where hot air that was collected and trapped
around the W LA/Hollywood region would collide with cooler air
coming in from Santa Monica/pacific ocean, and whatever they were
using to form the clouds would just fade out at this invisible border,
it was really like some invisible barrier wall that clouds would bump
up against and the hang there, or dissipate. And you could tell that
the pilots were having a hell of time flying through it. Problem is
that to even get any free airspace reserved in LA right next to
the Santa Monica airport to do a laser display really limited
where they could fly, plus it had to be close to the LM parking
lot where the lasers were setup. If the whole thing could have
been moved a mile in either direction we could have avoided
that "wall"..
As for these odd events, I have to admit that I've seen a UFO,
but not in the sense that I think it came from some other planet.
Was working on a LM job out at the Spruce Goose (the howard
hughes monster) which was out in Long Beach at that time,
and had to battle driving the 405 twice a day to/from W LA
to get there. Traffic jams out at LAX are legendary, and you
can be stuck at a crawl for hours, so I'd leave two hours
earlier than needed just to get there on time. It was the weeks
around Easter in about 86?, and it was a weekday morning,
very heavy traffic again at LAX. At that time, all around LAX
were the major aerospace companies like TRW, Hughes,
etc. As I had just passed LAX and ground to a halt at a
junction, I noticed the guy in the car looking up like he may
be looking at a traffic copter or something. So, I look up and
saw the most amazing, and puzzling thing I think I've ever
seen. About 500-1000ft above the service road along the
highway, was this long solid black triangle, absolutely
motionless, no noise, no tethers, just sitting there dead
in the air!!! There was the typical breeze off the ocean,
probably about 20mph, yet this thing just sat there. I would
guess from it's widest dimention, maybe 100ft across, and
about 75 feet deep, and just a solid black. And fairly thin,
and no wing shape to it. I looked back at the guy next to
me, he def. was seeing the same thing, he shrugged his
shoulders and settled back in his seat while I kept trying
to keep my eyes on it, but traffic was starting to move
again. I probably looked at for maybe 3 minutes non-stop,
and then looked back in the rear view one last time and
did see it again just for a second before I lost the view.
This was maybe 9:30am in rush hour, and I gotta think
that an awful lot of other folks must have seen it that day,
but I never heard any UFO reports for it. To this day, I've
always assumed that it was probably just some kinda
antenna or something under test at TRW, or one of the
other spook houses around there. Lou, our Spectra
Physic rep in the area that did get into those places
to service their lasers said that he had seen things that
he didn't think could exist, so it's not too much to think it
was just some experiment..
Sure made one hell of an impression on me though!
And if that thing had appeared anywhere else in the
world like that, I think a lot of folks would have freaked
out, but this was LA, nothing really winds folks up there
short of an earthquake..
d.
DougD
I guess the last tethered units were the TIPS, which were a tethered pair
which folks think have broken the tether as it used to be visible via a
decent scope, but can't be seen now. The first NOSS's I understand
did use tethers, the latter ones appear to stay in formation under their
own power. Of course, this is all just guessing on the part of an awful
lot of folks, we could all be wrong!
d.
DougD
\
>
>Speaking of satellites: A while ago I came to the realization (making
>rather crude estimates about orbital velocity and height) that even at
>the speed of light (e.g., with a laser) you would have to aim many
>feet in front of a high orbiting satellite in order for the beam of
>light to arrive at the same place and time as the satellite (also
>neglecting beam degradation due to atmospheric effects). Somehow that
>still doesn't seem quite right to me.
>
>Ron
Hmm, I'm mathamatically illiterate, so I'm the wrong one to comment on
this, but I think your math might be out a bit. I'm not sure that either the
distances, nor velocities of the sat's vs. earth are great enough to need
that amount of leading of a beam. Someone here has the skills to work
this out?!!! PLEASE!
d.
Lostgallifreyan
I just read a bit more on them before coming back here. Was just skimming
really (truth is, I get scared of getting lost in info without understanding,
having seeen the effects of that on people I've met in the past, hence what I
think of as 'Lone Gunman' syndrome for want of a better way of putting it).
Anyway, what I saw (at http://www.satobs.org/noss.html) is interesting, it
suggests some of them have means of being maintained in orbits, perhaps
strategic angling of solar panels to repeatedly catch solar wind, or even by
thrusters, and apparently some observers have good means of updating
observations well enough to confirm if orbital changes have been made, so
long as they're not the gradual ones I just hinted at based on what I read
about angled panels. On the other hand, some seem to have been lost and no-
one knows if they've been listed as debris or not. :) Not surprising given
that we recently learned how easily a toolbag can be lost out there..
It must be hard to track all that stuff. Either it must take a well organised
communication between lots of people, or it takes a few people all their
lives' work.
Actually I do think I've seen small pairs or groups of satellites and thought
nothing of it. I guess I imagined that some simple redundancy plan might
require that for several applications. Usually when I see any I'm also
running in the dark so I don't get to stare at them long, usually just long
enough to determine that they're not planes, planets or stars or a product of
my own dodgy perception. One satellite I really DO want to see is the
geostationary ones that do the EGNOS (SBAS for the EU, sited (I think) over
Africa) for GPS location refinement, because for the life of me I cannot get
those fixes, even though my GPS engine (Sanav FV-M8, descendent of Etek EB-
85A) is both equipped and currently enabled to receive them. I think EGNOS
only has three sats, but even so, on a hilltop with a clear southern view I
ought to be able to do this.
Lostgallifreyan
Interesting. I suspect most people don't register really weird stuff, they
tend to just assimilate it. The brain seems to work that way. Either it has
to be totally unassimilable because of masses of contradictions (which is how
my observation stands out), or it fits with some ideas that make it possible
to accept it. One late night in sub-zero totally still weather I had a
pleasant spooky hour or two with a blue glow that sat in the dark, not more
than a few hundred yards from those co-ordinates I gave you earlier. By this
time I'd heard of the X-Files, though not seen them (I don't like TV enough
to have one), so I made the most of the thrill this offered and stalked it in
wide circling paths in the dark till I could get close to see it without
being seen.It turned out to be the motor-powered advertising blimp that had
been flying over the city for a few days prior, and ultimately offered few
surprises, but it was fun stalking it knowing that for some time I really had
no clue what it was. I've rarely felt more alive, I can see what it is that
drives storm-chasers and UFO followers. But it doesn't drive me enough to go
out of my way, despite my own sighting of those beams in the sky.
Btw, at that age I was fascinated by clouds and such. I had some small
pictorial reference book.. I knew of cold fronts and other things that can
happen, and that's why I was so fascinated by the beams. They didn't have the
organic natural aspect that all other things up there do. Even contrails in a
still sky quickly blur artistically at the edges. These things didn't, and
that's the most disconcerting thing about them. I do like strange stuff like
this though. If someone wanted to take me to see something weird, I'd go, the
thing that would bother me most would be getting back if the car broke down
or I was left out there alone or something. On the other hand I still get an
atavistic kind of feeling if I look at a very close plane, sometimes they
look like they could never stay up there, but they do. :)
Lostgallifreyan
> This was maybe 9:30am in rush hour, and I gotta think
> that an awful lot of other folks must have seen it that day,
> but I never heard any UFO reports for it. To this day, I've
> always assumed that it was probably just some kinda
> antenna or something under test at TRW, or one of the
> other spook houses around there. Lou, our Spectra
> Physic rep in the area that did get into those places
> to service their lasers said that he had seen things that
> he didn't think could exist, so it's not too much to think it
> was just some experiment..
>
Might well be, actually. if the people doing it know it's not going to hurt
members of the public, where better to hide it that in the open? If most
people have no clue that what they're seeing is the kind of thing that is
meant to be hidden, they'll assume it's not meant to be hidden simply because
they're seeing it. Could be I'm making the same error. Truro at 23:00 on a
quiet weekday is fairly out-of-the-way, if someone wanted to do a quiet bit
of big science there are worse places to do it. I truly think that most weird
stuff goes un-noticed unless it fits the fashionable profile. One century
it's fairies, the next, small men with large strangely shaped heads... And if
someone took a laser back a couple of centuries they'd probably be burned as
a witch, assuming that people who saw it didn't just assume they already
understood what it was.
Bob H
> Bob H <bobhes...@comcast.net> wrote innews:3d1504a0-c9ee-4e9a...@c3g2000yqd.googlegroups.com:
> Nice setup. I bet even Skywise will be impressed with that. :) Can they be
> seen just by eye though? I haven't got money for a scope. (My next spend is
> actually on shortwave radio listening, once dental bills and other January
> bills are done..). One thought... I found a program called Celestia. Any
> chance that something might be added to that to enable me to map NOSS orbits
> and such? It's a 3D program so this could be very cool...
Thanks! The sun is still very quiet in this extended minimum. I'd
wait a year before buying anything solar.
Bob H
> Lostgallifreyan <no-...@nowhere.net> wrote innews:Xns9CF4AB4839A...@216.196.109.145:
> As Darth would say, "Most impressive."
>
> I've dabbled in solar viewing, but a 6 inch Newt is mighty big
> for looking at the sun. I fashioned a 2" aperture stop and used
> two layers of optical quality first surface mirror as a filter.
> I was mostly doing photography with only the occasional look
> by eye, so don't shoot me over the dangers.
>
> I'd like to try my hand at solar astronomy, Ha, CaK, but I have
> too many hobbies as it is for the time and money I have. Heck,
> I don't even remember the last time I pulled out my scope. :(
>
Thanks! You gotta' be careful with tossed together filters, as they
probably don't reject the far IR or UV which is abundant in sunlight.
The mylar "white light" filters like those from Baader or Thousand
Oaks are soooo cheap, there's really no reason to use anything else.
Six inches of aperture is no problem with them.
For entry level H-a viewing though, look at Lunt Solar. Narrower
bandwidth is better than aperture, but larger aperture still wins for
a given bandwidth. For solar viewing, happiness is a narrow notch!
There's also the homebuilt solar scope of David Groski, using two edge
filters to transmit a very narrow bandwidth. Look for his description
of it on Cloudy Nights ATM forum. And people have modified their
Coronado/Meade PSTs by adding a larger objective for better
resolution. You need to do this with caution, though.
Lostgallifreyan
307153...@j14g2000yqm.googlegroups.com:
> On Jan 2, 8:50�am, Lostgallifreyan <no-...@nowhere.net> wrote:
>> Bob H <bobhes...@comcast.net> wrote innews:3d1504a0-c9ee-4e9a-9a9b-408175
> d15...@c3g2000yqd.googlegroups.com:
>> Nice setup. I bet even Skywise will be impressed with that. :) Can they b
> e
>> seen just by eye though? I haven't got money for a scope. (My next spend
> is
>> actually on shortwave radio listening, once dental bills and other Januar
> y
>> bills are done..). One thought... I found a program called Celestia. Any
>> chance that something might be added to that to enable me to map NOSS orb
> its
>> and such? It's a 3D program so this could be very cool...
>
> Thanks! The sun is still very quiet in this extended minimum. I'd
> wait a year before buying anything solar.
>
Yep, same thing affects shortwave radio listening but in a way that's cool,
prices of used gear in several fields of interest will likely rise once
sunspot activity rises again.
DougD
Yup, all sorts of stuff!!! Here's just 10 days worth of one of three sat's in
the NOSS 2-1 triplet, object "E". I also ran the other NOSS triplets as
well as the pairs, and there are visible passes for that area almost
nightly! The big thing is the magnitude, which in the case of Heaven's
Above, not only gives you the brightness, but you can also kinda
deduce how much of a particular orbit will fall within your field of
view. So, I would stick with magnitudes from 6.5 to 5 or less.
Typically, a mag 5 here means that the pass will be almost direct
overhead, as well as most visible of this series. There's a good
event on Jan. 12 at 17:55 (5:55pm) At least one or two of the
other triplets, and a few of the doublets seem to be passing
right over head that evening, so there may be many chances
to spot these things.
I'd highly recommend signing up at Heaven's Above, they are very
good at being a one stop "shop" for all observing needs. And
as well, can provide you with the 2 line descriptions so that you
can plug this into your favorite astro programs. I've been using
Starry Night Pro with lots of success, although I've seen to have
found a bug that others have seen as well where predictions are
off by about 18 seconds. Doesn't sound like a big deal, but
it can be a big pain sometimes when
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NOSS 2-1 (E) - Visible Passes | Home | Info. | Orbit | Prev. | Next | Help |
Search period start: 00:00 Sunday, 3 January, 2010
Search period end: 00:00 Wednesday, 13 January, 2010
Observer's location: Long Ashton, 51.4310�N, 2.6550�W
Local time zone: Greenwich Mean Time (UTC + 0:00)
Orbit: 694 x 1520 km, 63.4� (Epoch Dec 27)
Click on the date to get a star chart and other pass details.
Date Mag Starts Max. altitude Ends Time Alt. Az. Time
Alt.Az. Time Alt. Az.
3 Jan 7.9 03:28:32 17 SSE 03:28:32 17 SSE
03:30:11 10 SSE
3 Jan 7.6 05:16:04 17 SSW 05:16:04 17 SSW
05:18:21 10 SSW
3 Jan 5.6 19:04:03 10 SSW 19:07:39 38 SSE
19:07:39 38 SSE
3 Jan 7.5 20:54:30 10 WSW 20:55:09 14 WSW
20:55:09 14 WSW
4 Jan 7.8 04:33:55 14 S 04:33:55 14 S
04:35:11 10 S
4 Jan 5.8 18:20:23 10 S 18:24:50 29 ESE
18:25:12 29 ESE
4 Jan 6.3 20:09:48 10 WSW 20:12:42 34 WSW
20:12:42 34 WSW
5 Jan 6.4 17:37:18 10 SSE 17:40:49 18 ESE
17:42:41 16 E
5 Jan 5.0 19:25:17 10 SW 19:30:11 79 SSW
19:30:11 79 SSW
5 Jan 7.7 21:16:58 10 W 21:17:41 14 W
21:17:41 14 W
6 Jan 6.9 16:55:49 10 ESE 16:56:56 11 ESE
16:58:01 10 E
6 Jan 5.0 18:41:03 10 SSW 18:46:10 60 SE
18:47:36 46 ENE
6 Jan 6.7 20:32:02 10 W 20:35:06 30 WNW
20:35:06 30 WNW
7 Jan 5.5 17:57:07 10 S 18:01:55 39 ESE
18:04:58 23 ENE
7 Jan 5.6 19:47:13 10 WSW 19:52:27 55 NW
19:52:27 55 NW
7 Jan 7.9 21:39:35 10 WNW 21:39:56 12 WNW
21:39:56 12 WNW
8 Jan 6.1 17:13:38 10 SSE 17:17:48 25 ESE
17:22:16 11 ENE
8 Jan 5.1 19:02:34 10 SW 19:07:55 75 NW
19:09:45 46 NNE
8 Jan 7.1 20:54:36 10 WNW 20:57:14 24 WNW
20:57:14 24 WNW
9 Jan 6.7 16:30:51 10 SE 16:33:51 15 ESE
16:37:04 10 ENE
9 Jan 5.0 18:18:10 10 SW 18:23:24 78 SE
18:26:59 26 NE
9 Jan 6.3 20:09:38 10 W 20:14:28 38 NNW
20:14:28 38 NNW
10 Jan 5.3 17:34:01 10 SSW 17:39:03 52 ESE
17:44:11 14 NE
10 Jan 5.9 19:24:43 10 WSW 19:30:03 47 NNW
19:31:39 39 N
10 Jan 7.5 21:17:12 10 WNW 21:19:08 19 NW
21:19:08 19 NW
11 Jan 5.9 16:50:15 10 S 16:54:51 33 ESE
17:00:12 10 NE
11 Jan 5.4 18:39:58 10 WSW 18:45:19 61 NW
18:48:48 27 NE
11 Jan 6.8 20:32:15 10 WNW 20:36:17 29 NNW
20:36:17 29 NNW
12 Jan 5.1 17:55:23 10 SW 18:00:42 84 NW
18:05:55 16 NE
12 Jan 6.4 19:47:14 10 W 19:52:30 35 NNW
19:53:23 33 N
12 Jan 7.7 21:39:36 10 NW 21:40:51 16 NW
21:40:51 16 NW
Lostgallifreyan
>>Actually Doug, I was wondering if your current setup tells me if there's
>>anything interesting I might see by eye at location 51.446798,-2.646170
>>:)
>
> Yup, all sorts of stuff!!! Here's just 10 days worth of one of three
> sat's in the NOSS 2-1 triplet, object "E". I also ran the other NOSS
> triplets as well as the pairs, and there are visible passes for that
> area almost nightly! The big thing is the magnitude, which in the case
> of Heaven's Above, not only gives you the brightness, but you can also
> kinda deduce how much of a particular orbit will fall within your field
> of view. So, I would stick with magnitudes from 6.5 to 5 or less.
> Typically, a mag 5 here means that the pass will be almost direct
> overhead, as well as most visible of this series. There's a good
> event on Jan. 12 at 17:55 (5:55pm) At least one or two of the
> other triplets, and a few of the doublets seem to be passing
> right over head that evening, so there may be many chances
> to spot these things.
>
Nice, motivation to get me out there again after a very sedentary 10 days.
I'll try to figure out a good one to try soon. (Early mornings, once I can
readjust).
Dave
> In article <mWz%m.5749$0%7.5...@newsfe27.ams2>, Skywise <i...@oblivion.nothing.com> wrote:
> >m...@here.com (DougD) wrote innews:Uby%m.3853$Gf3....@newsfe22.iad:
>
> >> Ok, that's the last time I tell anyone that I think some UFO's were
> >> just satellites..
> >> So, if you wanna bit of a giggle, and see the scruffy old coot behind
> >> this typing, go check out:
> >>http://www.chtv.com/ch/cheknews/video/index.html
>
> >What an ugly $&^%#$*#@!!!
>
> >j/k :)
Doug, don't listen to him.. ...Besides, you had me at "tethered
satellites" ... 8-) :)
Dave
Lou, our Spectra
> Physic rep in the area that did get into those places
> to service their lasers said that he had seen things that
> he didn't think could exist, so it's not too much to think it
> was just some experiment..
I think your local SP rep may have (had) the answer. That, or a simple
optical illusion of sorts..
Dave
> Dave <chachaves...@gmail.com> wrote in news:dd7d4182-4af7-4c8c-841c-
>
> >>. I was 11 years old (or maybe 10), reading late when I shouldn't be,
> >> and in the habit of looking out of the window at times to see helicopters
> > ,
>Won't be actual area 51 stuff though, that's the Lone Gunman stuff I avoid.
> What is weird is that twice I have had connections with people who worked at
> Culdrose (one sister, learning to fly helicopters, and one woman who was a
> Wren there many years earlier). Neither of them have any idea about this. The
> night was calm though, little wind, just enough to move clouds around, and
> not many of those either. Helicopters only flew around up there on stormy
> nights, they were for search and rescue.. But I still think someone in such a
> base must have seen that thing, anyone whose business it is to watch the sky
> would have seen it. But who to ask? And who would tell me even if they had? I
> figure that posting this here is better than other places on the net, where I
> might at least have some chance of a radio or optics engineer's input. Most
> places I'd just find reports of raining frogs and other stuff that means
> nothing to me. I'm not Mulder. My interest is very specific. :)
Ok, but at age 10-11...Some words come to mind....."young &
impressionable"...+too many dr. who episodes, and one too many soda
pops.......hhmm..... :)
It could be the start of a great novel ... You can makes millions!!!
Then, movie rights!!..... Have your agent contact my agent urgently.
Mike Kaliski
"Lostgallifreyan" <no-...@nowhere.net> wrote in message
news:Xns9CF4A6ED190...@216.196.109.145...
> Lostgallifreyan <no-...@nowhere.net> wrote in
> news:Xns9CF4A43B8D7...@216.196.109.145:
>
>> Btw, I have brought this up here once before. Sam (Goldwasser) mentioned
>> Skytracker arc lights, directional display type thingers.. I looked
>> those up, and have learned that such things are used in the city I now
>> live in, during special events. But that was mid to late 70's, I don't
>> think such accurate high intensity lights were common then, and those
>> beams look very directional, it's obvious when seeing the beams which
>> end they're coming from, and the crossed beams had NO such clue in
>> either of them. More crucially, a modern Skytracker beam is a piss-poor
>> spectacle when seen over a distance of several hundred yards, never mind
>> a few miles. What I saw rivalled the light of clouds lit by a bright
>> moon. this I know because I saw them at the same time. No artificial
>> light I ever heard of can compete with that in a display that crosses a
>> mile or two of clean air. Not even now. So I think that the light source
>> was moonlight, and the 'beams' were regions of humid or otherwise cloudy
>> air that scattered that moonlight. But what kind of cause can account
>> for that? If this story doesn't bake your noodles as much as it baked
>> mine, you're looking at it wrong somehow.
>
> moment that they were merely projected collimated beams. Now what are the
> odds that not ONCE did something in the air pass through either of them
> long
> enough to produce the comparatively brilliant flash or even more
> persistent
> reflective or diffractive source that such interruption of a beam would
> produce? Even clean air on a moderately windy night isn't so clean that
> nothing in a period of three hours wouldn't interrupt the beams. If they
> were
> beams it's likely that sparkling interruptions would occur many times in a
> few minutes never mind hours, and they did not.
>
> So again, if you're reading this and interested in trying to explain it,
> be
> aware that plenty of effort has already been tried to do that already, so
> it
> likely won't be an obvious answer.
If these beams were so evident in the sky and so unusual, several people
must have noticed and possibly reported them. The newly declassified UK UFO
files may have a mention. Could be worth a search. There should be a news
item or link from the direct.gov.uk webpages.
Personally I would put this down to two high altitude jet contrails crossing
and being back lit by the moon. The air at high altitude can be
exceptionally stable during the rare high pressure events over the UK.
Absolutely zero air movement at high altitude for days at times. Near to the
coast low level wind could exist due to differential heating of land and sea
without influencing the upper air in the slightest. A jet from say Spain
taking the polar route to Japan crossing the flight path of a jet to or from
the US could make a cross in the sky. A rare event, but not impossible and
with less air traffic in those days, no other contrails to see.
By the by. Saw loads of bright orange lights flying in formation over
Norfolk UK on New Years Eve after midnight. Chinese lanterns every one of
them, although the speed they were travelling and apparent direction changes
made them look quite spectacularly like some sort of silent powered craft.
Virtually no wind at ground level but these things were travelling 60-70mph
at maybe 2-3000 feet. There's a shop in the city centre sells loads of these
lanterns through the year and whenever there's a big party somewhere, the
local police are inundated with calls about UFO's. With several military
bases and a commercial airport all within 30 miles any genuine UFO is going
to be investigated within minutes of a sighting.
Regards
Mike g0uli (just popped in from r.r.a.a.)
Skywise
> Hmm, I'm mathamatically illiterate, so I'm the wrong one to comment on
> this, but I think your math might be out a bit. I'm not sure that either
> the distances, nor velocities of the sat's vs. earth are great enough to
> need that amount of leading of a beam. Someone here has the skills to
> work this out?!!! PLEASE!
Simple math. All we need to know is the orbital velocity, altitude,
and the speed of light. We are assuming a best case scenario of
the satellite being straight up.
First, calculate how long the it takes light to travel that high.
Next, determine how far the satellite travels during that time.
That answer is your lead distance.
According to Wikipedia, the ISS orbits about 340km high and has an
average orbital velocity of 27,743 km/h.
How long does it take a beam of light to travel 340km?
340,000 divided by 299,792,458 gives us 0.001134 seconds.
How far does the space station move in 0.001134 seconds at a
speed of 27,743 km/h?
27,743 km/h divided by 60 is 462.38 kilometers per minute.
462.38 km/min divided by 60 is 7.70638 kilometers per second.
7.70638 km times 0.001134 seconds gives us 0.008739045 km,
which is 8.739045 meters.
So yes, you have to aim about 8.7 meters (about 28 1/2 feet)
ahead of the target.
Brian
--
http://www.skywise711.com - Lasers, Seismology, Astronomy, Skepticism
Seismic FAQ: http://www.skywise711.com/SeismicFAQ/SeismicFAQ.html
Quake "predictions": http://www.skywise711.com/quakes/EQDB/index.html
Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?
Skywise
> But even geeks need love, lens cleaner, solder, a new 'scope, oh hell,
> love can wait.. All a matter of priorities..
I love the smell of leaded solder in the morning. Smells like...
OH SHIT!!! I burned my finger!!!
Skywise
a6cc58...@a32g2000yqm.googlegroups.com:
> happiness is a narrow notch!
Please tell me I'm not the only one with my mind in the gutter...
DougD
Apologies on all the odd characters, my news server just dropped out for
no reason and I've only just been able to get back on in the last hour or
so, typical shaw oddness..
d.
DougD
Very impressive!
Thanks!
d.
DougD
>Bob H <bobh...@comcast.net> wrote in news:40e572d7-382e-4c17-9a46-
>a6cc58...@a32g2000yqm.googlegroups.com:
>
>> happiness is a narrow notch!
>
>Please tell me I'm not the only one with my mind in the gutter...
>
>Brian
for some reason camel toe sprung to mind.. def. a sick bunch
here, happy and well adjusted, but sicko's, all of us!
thank god!
d.
Lostgallifreyan
Oh yeah, just don't usually find it here. :)
Lostgallifreyan
news:VPd0n.50812$pV.1...@newsfe23.ams2:
> m...@here.com (DougD) wrote in news:znT%m.972$ap2...@newsfe18.iad:
>
>> But even geeks need love, lens cleaner, solder, a new 'scope, oh hell,
>> love can wait.. All a matter of priorities..
>
> I love the smell of leaded solder in the morning. Smells like...
>
> OH SHIT!!! I burned my finger!!!
>
> Brian
I am so fussy about that, it has to be resin cored, can't stand the smell of
the 'crystal' stuff. never mind the properties, it's ALL about the smell.
Lostgallifreyan
news:WNd0n.50802$pV.2...@newsfe23.ams2:
> So yes, you have to aim about 8.7 meters (about 28 1/2 feet)
> ahead of the target.
>
> Brian
But one of the nice things about the feedback loop in our own perception is
that we wouldn't sense that anyway, we'd just know if we were hitting it or
not, and the beam would look straight as we hit it too. I think this fact is
actually more amazing than the fact that we are adjusting for it. Even when
the delay is perceptible it works, as any batsman knows. Resolving that will
tell us a great deal about how we perceive time, and probably resolve more
paradoxes than attempting to do it by external physics experiments. On the
other hand, those experiments are why we can do lots of things faster than we
can think about them...
Lostgallifreyan
news:wrqdnTUXUK13xNzW...@bt.com:
> If these beams were so evident in the sky and so unusual, several people
> must have noticed and possibly reported them. The newly declassified UK
> UFO files may have a mention. Could be worth a search. There should be a
> news item or link from the direct.gov.uk webpages.
I didn't know about that. Could be worth a try, but I can't help thinking I
will have to beg borrow or steal a Lone Gunman hat. :) Tinfoil lined,
perhaps? Seriously, that might be a fun read anyway, whatever I see in it. I
do want to assume that many others saw those beams, but I never found any
hint that they did yet. Google is usually surprisingly good at finding such
accounts, as people often document such stuff on the net. WHich is one reason
why I'm doing that now, if someone else did, and is looking, they might see
these acounts and post somewhere where I might see it. Always a risk that I
just primed them with descriptions that make it hard to know if they'd be
telling the truth though. :) But it can't be helped. Limiting that risk is
why I don't post in the kinds of places where I'd be asking for that kind of
noise just by doing so. I think now my best bet is to let it go like last
time, and see if I learn anything I didn't know before.
> Personally I would put this down to two high altitude jet contrails
> crossing and being back lit by the moon. The air at high altitude can be
> exceptionally stable during the rare high pressure events over the UK.
> Absolutely zero air movement at high altitude for days at times.
That's my main thought too, but it does have problems. These were DEAD
straight, none of the difference in apparent density across the beam that a
contrail nearly always shows. Note that a contrail usually looks diffuse at
the edges by the time the centre is equally diffuse, these beams looked like
planks made of pearl. They were perfectly perpendicular. They stayed
absolutely fixed relative to ground-based objects, for at least three hours.
They were either both there together, or not there. I've seen contrails many
times, every time I see a long persistent one I watch it to see if it ever
persists, or even basically appears, as those beams did, and they never do.
Even on the stillest of early mornings or during the most eerily persistent
high altitude conditions, nothing remains that sharply defined, that unmoved.
They might be like watching the hour hand of a clock, but those beams were
static. I was lying equally static for an hour to determine this before I
considered getting my parents to see them.
> Near to
> the coast low level wind could exist due to differential heating of land
> and sea without influencing the upper air in the slightest. A jet from
> say Spain taking the polar route to Japan crossing the flight path of a
> jet to or from the US could make a cross in the sky. A rare event, but
> not impossible and with less air traffic in those days, no other
> contrails to see. By the by. Saw loads of bright orange lights flying in
> formation over Norfolk UK on New Years Eve after midnight. Chinese
> lanterns every one of them, although the speed they were travelling and
> apparent direction changes made them look quite spectacularly like some
> sort of silent powered craft. Virtually no wind at ground level but
> these things were travelling 60-70mph at maybe 2-3000 feet. There's a
> shop in the city centre sells loads of these lanterns through the year
> and whenever there's a big party somewhere, the local police are
> inundated with calls about UFO's. With several military bases and a
> commercial airport all within 30 miles any genuine UFO is going to be
> investigated within minutes of a sighting.
>
I've never see anything like those, I think. Once I think I saw someone shine
a laser in the sky beyond Ashton Court estate, in the west. It was an eerie
sight because it was diffuse, so pale it was scotopic vision only, and it was
too collimated to be anything but a laser, I think. It was strange because it
didn't look how I might have expected it somehow, and I was probably lucky to
see it at all. I think someone was shining it straight up, if it had passed
overhead it would have looked far more familiar. The motion would have been
more transient too.
> Regards
>
> Mike g0uli (just popped in from r.r.a.a.)
>
>
Thanks for doing that. :)
Lostgallifreyan
> Apologies on all the odd characters, my news server just dropped out for
> no reason and I've only just been able to get back on in the last hour
> or so, typical shaw oddness..
>
> d.
>
I noticed. :) Looked like it got caught in a virtual paper shredder.
Sometimes I have to wonder at my own typos, surely they can't all be mine...
Lostgallifreyan
cde01b...@t19g2000vbc.googlegroups.com:
I don't know how to judge it, I have too little context for it, but for two
people to see it means it isn't all that angle-dependent, which makes it
likely to be detected easily by others, and at other times. The only time I
can vividly remember being near an airport (Heathrow) while sitting in a car
in slow traffic, the impression of everything was stark clarity, roarings
overhead, huge bits of white metal hanging almost impossibly slowly in the
sky as they passed down the road as if they had to follow it as surely as we
did. It's not an environment that makes illusions easy, it wakes the mind too
much.
Lostgallifreyan
e4d46f...@z40g2000vba.googlegroups.com:
> Ok, but at age 10-11...Some words come to mind....."young &
> impressionable"...+too many dr. who episodes, and one too many soda
> pops.......hhmm..... :)
>
> It could be the start of a great novel ... You can makes millions!!!
> Then, movie rights!!..... Have your agent contact my agent urgently.
>
>
Forget it. I'd not yet seen Doctor Who, I was an outsider in every school and
class I was in, we had no TV, and if anything, I grossly lacked imagination
to the point where it affected my school work when it was required. I wasn't
very impressionable. People all around me were playing with cultural
references and stuff I didn't get. I was a VERY literally minded kid, and it
used to get me bullied because I couldn't enter that mindset. Damn near
everyone around me was more impressionable than I was. At age six I looked up
at parents towering over me one with a prayer book in their hand, calmly
knowing that this was somethign they needed, not me.
Mike Kaliski
There was one other UFO incident that I have knowledge of that was reported
in Hainault Forest, Essex around 1979/80. Although the case became accepted
as a genuine UFO incident by UFO watchers, the truth is somewhat stranger.
At the time there was very little activity after midnight and a certain
police officer was in the habit of parking up in the trees, setting a travel
alarm on the dashboard and catching 40 winks. Certain colleagues who were
aware of this decided to rig a suitable sound and light display in the trees
to give him an early wake up call. Unfortunately the display was somewhat
more spectacular than planned and was seen by several members of the public.
Obviously the perpetrators and victim of this prank couldn't own up or they
would have been subject to disciplinary action.
Although I didn't witness the incident, I did know quite a few people who
were involved and strangely enough the victim never did find out the truth
of what he really saw and heard that night. It was quite interesting hearing
him tell the tale, even though I already knew what had really happened.
In those days police officers were poorly paid and frequently had another
job in the building trade or similar just to make ends meet, so it wasn't
unusual to find people catching up on a bit of sleep during night duty.
Innocent times...
Mike
Lostgallifreyan
> There was one other UFO incident that I have knowledge of that was
> reported in Hainault Forest, Essex around 1979/80. Although the case
> became accepted as a genuine UFO incident by UFO watchers, the truth is
> somewhat stranger. At the time there was very little activity after
> midnight and a certain police officer was in the habit of parking up in
> the trees, setting a travel alarm on the dashboard and catching 40
> winks. Certain colleagues who were aware of this decided to rig a
> suitable sound and light display in the trees to give him an early wake
> up call. Unfortunately the display was somewhat more spectacular than
> planned and was seen by several members of the public. Obviously the
> perpetrators and victim of this prank couldn't own up or they would have
> been subject to disciplinary action. Although I didn't witness the
> incident, I did know quite a few people who were involved and strangely
> enough the victim never did find out the truth of what he really saw and
> heard that night. It was quite interesting hearing him tell the tale,
> even though I already knew what had really happened. In those days
> police officers were poorly paid and frequently had another job in the
> building trade or similar just to make ends meet, so it wasn't unusual
> to find people catching up on a bit of sleep during night duty. Innocent
> times...
>
That one actually WOULD make a good movie. �^O
If I'd been that man I'd have pretended to sleep through it just to see what
transpired.
Dave
>
> Forget it. I'd not yet seen Doctor Who, I was an outsider in every school and
> class I was in, we had no TV, and if anything, I grossly lacked imagination
> to the point where it affected my school work when it was required. I wasn't
> very impressionable. People all around me were playing with cultural
> references and stuff I didn't get. I was a VERY literally minded kid, and it
> used to get me bullied because I couldn't enter that mindset. Damn near
> everyone around me was more impressionable than I was. At age six I looked up
> at parents towering over me one with a prayer book in their hand, calmly
> knowing that this was somethign they needed, not me.
The answer, might be closer than you think. :)
Skywise
Snip of very fine report. Has me stumped.
> but this was LA, nothing really winds folks up there
> short of an earthquake..
And being a native I have to say that sometimes even then it
doesn't rile them up, unless it's BIIIIIIG.
hmmm...quakes...one of my other hobbies.
Lostgallifreyan
1b5134...@q16g2000vbc.googlegroups.com:
But unless I can see it and experience it directly, or you know what it is,
I'm not interested. That's the trouble with the X-Files, for example. It
promises but it never satisfies. I don't think you get it yet. I saw that
thing. My parents saw it. It happened.