Hi! I have been off the list since September, but wanted to share this observation. Saturday 11/22 my wife & I were in Joshua Tree National Park, CA, a few miles S of the W entrance. About long 116.3 W, lat 34.1 N, elevation 920 m. We were looking at sats and Comet Encke, and noticed a striking phenomenon. A group of 3 objects crossed the sky from the West to the south. First saw them in the west about 30 deg high near Altair. (They may have appeared earlier but this was when we noticed them.) At 19:31 local time = 3:31 11/23 UTC. Not timing precisely so +- 1 minute. We could see them till they went behind a set of hills about 3 deg elevation. They were greenish, perhaps mag 0, and shedding a trail of greenish debris. Just before going behind the hills the center object flashed to mag -1. There was also a group of 2 on the same track about 20 deg behind; they faded out after traveling about 30 deg. I'd stress that they took a long time to cross the sky. Perhaps 40 s although I was not timing precisely. Long enough to discuss them, pass 7x50 binoculars back and forth a few times. Slower than any meteor I've ever seen. About as fast as any on-orbit sat I've seen, and I've seen some sats within 24 h before decay. So I think this may be a decay. I saw no discussion on this list, and no decays predicted for this area, and welcome your opinions! Mark ----------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from SeeSat-L, send a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@satobs.org List archived at http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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