Gearing up for ROSAT's re-entry, and an older observation of a Breeze-M tank near M31

Shortly after UARS, another satellite about to reenter is in the news: ROSAT. I last observed and photographed it about a week ago (see here and here) - since then, passes have become unfavourable for the Netherlands.

In an interesting twist, Sky & Telescope's J. Kelly Beatty reports that DLR and ESA sources confirmed to him that they expect the entire telescope mirror array - which weights 1.6 tons! - to survive reentry, impacting intact!

Various modellers now project the reentry to occur on October 23rd. Here is a short list of what various sources currently predict [editted 12:10 UTC, Oct 21, with latest Molczan update):

Space-Track (SSC):  23 Oct, 05:49 UTC (+/- 24 hrs)
Harro Zimmer: 23 Oct, 05:03 UTC (+/- 48 hrs)
Ted Molczan (using SatEvo): 23 Oct, 05:00 UTC (+/- 10 hrs) [editted]
Aerospace Corp.: 23 Oct, 13:24 UTC (+/- 16 hrs)

Since Ted uses the same software I used for my UARS predictions, and hence our results will be similar, I will not put forward my own predictions here but refer to Ted's.


A Breeze-M near M31, the Andromeda nebula

In my post of October 2nd, I featured an image I took on 29 September of a Russian Proton upper stage Breeze-M tank near the trail of USA 129. I wrote that:

These pieces of Russian space debris pop up more often on my images lately. They are the jettisonable torroidal (doughnut-shaped) fuel tanks of a Breeze-M, the upper stage of a Proton M. There are now over 40 of these spent empty tanks in space, often in highly elliptic orbits representative of a geostationary transfer.

Just a few days later, on October 2nd, I took advantage of clear skies to image M31, the Andromeda galaxy. The camera (Canon EOS 450D) with the Samyang 1.4/85mm lens was piggybacked on a Meade ETX-70 in order to use the telescope drive to follow the stars. A long series of 10 second images was taken.

Several satellites showed up on the image series, including a Breeze-M tank again, this time 2006-056B:

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Here is the final image of M31, a stack of 105 individual 10 second images:

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Given that this image was taken from a town center with modest equipment, I am quite happy with it! If you compare it to a single frame image (above) it shows the strong improvement in signal-to-noise ratio that comes from stacking images.The two satellite galaxies come out much better, and so does a glimpse of the spiral structure and dust bands in the Andromeda galaxy.

Satellite rush hour

Over the past week I could observe on the evenings of April 8th, 11th and 12th. Several objects were captured: the KH-12 USA 186 (05-042A) on all three evenings, IGS 1B (03-009B) on the 8th and 12th, the KH-12 USA 129 (96-072A) and the IGS 5r/b on the 8th. USA 186 slowly flared to -1 on the 11th at 20:34:45 UTC.

In addition, a number of strays were captured, including yet another Breeze-M tank (09-016C, from the Eutelsat W2A launch) and a non-classified military object, the DMSP B5D2-2 (83-113A) military weather satellite. The latter flared, with the flare peak near 20:34:12.87 UTC (secondary peaks near 20:34:12.45 and 20:34:13.37 UTC).

The DMSP flare was captured as a stray in a rather uniquely satellite-crowded image that also shows the KH-12 USA 186 (the target), the mentioned Breeze-M tank (09-016C), and a third stray, the Kosmos 1531 r/b (84-003B) all in an area of only a few degrees! Below is the image in question (the DMSP is moving from top to bottom here, USA from bottom to top):

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Below is the brightness profile of the DMSP flare derived from the image:

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During observations, I had a spectator: Pippi the cat followed my activities with close attention from behind the window:

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Again USA 200, and another Proton Breeze-M tank

A somewhat belated report on the 11th. It was very clear on the night of 11-12 Feb. As I had dinner guests, I couldn't take advantage of it during the LEO window, but I did target a suitable HEO object later that night when my guests were gone: USA 200 (08-010A).

Like two nights earlier, the images with USA 200 contain a Russian Proton Breeze-M tank as a stray. It is another one than that of Feb 9th however: this time it was 06-056B, the Breeze-M tank of the MEASAT 3 launch.

Below images (both with the EF 100/2.5 Macro USM) show the short fat trail of USA 200, and the longer trail of the Breeze-M tank.

click images to enlarge

USA 200 and a Proton Breeze-M tank - UPDATED

The last 3 weeks have been clouded and saw no opportunity to observe. Yesterday around midnight, I however noted it had cleared. It was a short duration clearing only before clouds bringing snow came in again, but the sky quality was quite good.

I tried to target the HEO USA 200 (08-010A) with the EF 2.5/100 Macro while it was passing through Auriga, but had bad luck: it didn't show up on the pictures, presumably being a bit too faint this time. Checking the images more carefully a few hours later, I discovered it some 0.35 degree off from the predicted position, being almost half a minute late.

The same picture series captured a stray unclassified object: a Russian Proton upper stage Breeze-M tank, 08-057B, from the 5 Nov 2008 launch of the Astra 1M satellite. Below is an animated GIF showing the trail (which was close to the image edge), and a picture of it's orbit. The animated GIF is constructed of 5 10-second exposure images taken at 20 second intervals.

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A very clear night, Lacrosses, the Breeze-M tank and the Pleiades

Yesterday evening (22 Dec) was very clear. I obtained photographs of the passes of the Lacrosse 5 rocket (05-016B), and Lacrosse 4 (00-047A)..

I photographed Lacrosse 4 with the Pleiades just before eclipse (see below). When inspecting the image for astrometric reduction, I noted a second, fainter trail on the image. Measuring it and running an ID, I found it was close to predicted positions for the Breeze-M (deb) tank, 05-019C. There was an odd 0.6 degree discrepancy though. Mike solved it by pointing out that a SDP4 solution yielded perfect residues, while the SGP4 theory SatFit uses doesn't. So, the question mark plus the "UNID" in below image can be erased.

(click image to enlarge)

Later that night, after the LEO window closed, I spent some time doing astrophotography with my camera piggyback on my Meade ETX-70. I still have to stack part of the images, but already finished stacking 102 x 10s exposures of the Pleiades with the EF 50/2.5 lens, yielding this result:

(click image to enlarge)