A so far unidentified object in GEO near PAN and Eutelsat Hot Bird 13B [UPDATED]

PAN on March 4, 2024 (click image to enlarge)

UNID near PAN on March 8, 2024 (click image to enlarge)

In the evening of March 8 I did some observations to check upon the drifting PAN/NEMESIS-1 satellite. To my surprise, there was another object there that is not in the current catalogue (as of 10 March 2024). It wasn't there yet when I imaged the area 4 days earlier, in the evening of March 4, as can be seen by comparing the two images above.

Most likely this UNID is some commercial geosynchronous satellite that has been relocated without the 18th STS having caught that move yet. But it could also be something new. For now, it remains unidentified.

The UNID is located at about 33.8 E longitude. A very provisional elset:

UNID ML080324
1 99999U 24000X   24068.68698391 0.00000000  00000-0  00000-0 0    03
2 99999   0.0001  87.9800 0002372 229.7255 130.2564  1.00270000    07

The object could perhaps be the newly launched Chinese satellite WHG-01 (2024-040A). It was launched from Xichang a week ago, on 29 February 2024. Currently (March 11, 2024), only an 8-day old GTO elset is available for the object. That elset combined with the elset for the UNID above suggests that the satellite could have been inserted into GEO at 33.8 E on March 6 near 11 UTC.

Over the half hour arc that I imaged it on March 8, the UNID remained stationary. 

PAN/NEMESIS-1 is meanwhile slowly drifting west (the drift can be seen in the images above too, by comparing the distance of PAN/NEMESIS-1 to EUTELSAT HOT BIRD B13), as it has been doing for quite a while now. On 2024 March 8 it was near longitude 33.45 E. It is currently drifting at a rate of approximately -0.03 degrees per day.

 

PAN longitude of subsatellite point over time (click diagram to enlarge)

NOTE: an initial mix-up of the names of two recently launched Chinese GEO sats was corrected.

 

UPDATE 14 March 2024:

Space-Track, since yesterday (first non-GTO TLE has epoch 24073.71736125 = 13 March 2024 17:13 UTC), finally also places an object  in this position, catalogue nr 59069, COSPAR 2024-040A. Provisionally named "Object A", but the Cospar code indicates this would indeed be the Chinese satellite WHG-01.

UNID galore! Locating Govsat-1

The evening of 13 February 2018 was very clear. I used the WATEC video camera to track objects in Low Earth Orbit in evening twilight, and later in the evening did a short session on Geostationary satellites.

Over the course of this I recorded as much as 3 initially unidentified objects ("UNID's"): objects that at the time of observation did not match with a known orbit in either the unclassified JSpOC orbit database or our amateur database of classified objects.

The first of these UNID's was the one in the footage above, which appeared while I was waiting for another satellite to pass. It didn't match anything known. The ~62-degree orbital inclination from a circular fit to the data suggested something NOSS-ey. Mike McCants later managed to identify it as probably NOSS 6 (C), (1984-012C), last observed 10 months ago.

The other two UNID's appeared in my photographic imagery from later that evening aimed at geostationary objects. The first one was a short Northwards moving trail pointing to an object in GTO that was alas only visible in two pictures. Here is one of these two images (the image also shows the classified Early Warning satellite SBIRS-GEO 2 (2013-011A), which was the target of the image):

click image to enlarge

This turned out to be the same object as a UNID imaged by Cees Bassa that same evening, and correlated by him to the object we designate as "Unknown 091017" (2009-790A). This object was first seen in 2009 and more recently "lost" for a while, as it was last seen 566 days (1.5 years) ago. This object in a 25 degree inclined GTO orbit (image below) is probably a rocket stage from a classified launch.

click to enlarge

The third UNID was an object near Geostationary altitudes, close to the commercial GEO sat Astra 3B. It is the object indicated with a yellow arrow below:

click image to enlarge

I initially somehow managed to miss this object when going through my imagery, but Cees Bassa had imaged it that same evening and urged me to look for it in my imagery, after which I found it too.

This object is most likely Govsat-1 (SES 16; 2018-013A), launched for a joint-venture of SES and the Luxemburg government by SpaceX two weeks earlier on 31 January 2018. It is "aimed exclusively at government and defence users" and its orbit is classified (although its operational slot at 21.5 E has been made public). The military of several NATO countries will use it for secure communications as part of military and humanitarian operations. The satellite was built by Orbital ATK.

The orbital slot assigned to it is at 21.5 E. On the evening of 13 February we detected it at 23.8 E, some 2 degrees to the East of this, so it probably is still slowly drifting westwards towards 21.5 E, where it will arrive somewhere in the coming few days.

The object had a noted brightness variability (in the image above it was at its brightest, while it was completely invisible in some of the other images), indicating it is spinning, probably spin-stabilization while in transfer to its orbital destination.

This object will be very interesting to follow in the feature, as it has a port that allows another still to be launched object to dock to it.

Observing Geostationary satellites from Indonesia

(click images to enlarge)

In July-August this year I visited Indonesia, travelling around on the island of Sulawesi and briefly stopping over on Bali on the way back to the Netherlands. It was a special trip, in which I searched for and found the house where my grandparents and father once lived, visited archaeological sites, and in general got  to see wonderful things and got to meet wonderful people.

One of the wonderful things was the night sky - especially at the Togian islands between North and central Sulawesi. A splendid Milky-Way from horizon to horizon (image above), the zodiacal light (image below), and my first good view of the Southern Cross (second image below).

During the stop-over on Bali, I did some limited satellite observations. Geostationary objects that are never visible from the Netherlands and which I normally only get to image using a 'remote' telescope, were the focus.

Unfortunately, the lens I had intended for that purpose, my EF 2.8/100 mm Macro USM, turned out to have been damaged during the trip, to the point that it had become optically clearly faulty. I therefore had to use a decidedly less suited lens, my EF 4.0-5.6/70-300 mm telezoom. As a result, only the brightest geostationary objects did register.

Among the objects that did register were the SDS satellites USA 227 (2011-011A) and USA 155 (2000-080A), the Mentor 2 r/b (1998-029B), and two objects that initially were UNIDS although one of them could later be identified.

The first one was a bright object just north of USA 155, which I earlier had also imaged using a 'remote' telescope. It almost certainly is the communication satellite Milstar 4.

The second UNID was an object in an 7.8 degree inclined GTO  orbit that was clearly trailing in the 30 second exposures (see image below). It does not match any known object. Astrometry and a very approximate orbit for this object are here.

A bounty of GEO satellites on June 21

The night of June 21-22 was clear, and as I had trouble sleeping, I decided to take the short bicycle trip to my secondary site, Cospar 4355. This site is located in the polder only just outside of town, but the sky is better there than at my regular site 4353, which is in the town center (the secondary site is about 2 km south of my regular site). As a result, I can use twice as long exposures, which means I can image fainter GEO satellites than from my regular site. The site, being in a polder, also has less horizon obstruction. Below is a panorama of the site, split up in two parts, each slightly larger than 180 degrees. Azimuth directions are indicated.

Panoramic view at Cospar 4355

I took some 54 picture (20 second exposures with a Canon EOS 60D + SamYang 1.4/85mm at 800 ISO) over the course of an hour. My main focus was on approximately 20-30 degree (1-2 camera fields) wide equatorial areas near azimuth 120-130 deg, 160 deg and 200 deg.

I captured a nice batch of objects: 17 classified objects, two Unknowns (initially four but two got ID-ed as classifieds) and A LOT of unclassified objects. The image in the top of this post shows an only 2.7 degree wide stretch of one image, and look how many objects are already in it.
One of the objects in the image, the defunct Russian military comsat Raduga 1-M1/Kosmos 2434 (2007-058A) was flaring repeatedly in subsequent images (compare also the two images in the top of this post).

The images below show two other swaths of sky only a few degrees wide. Various commercial GEO sats are visible, as well as two old Ariane r/b, of which several were captured this night:

click image to enlarge

It also shows  the British military communications satellite Skynet 5B (2007-0056B).

One of the classified objects captured this night was AEHF 2 (USA 235, 2012-019A), part the new military communications satellite constellation that is gradually replacing the Milsat system. Another object imaged was the SBIRS GEO 2 (2013-011A) satellite, part of the new infra-red Early Warning constellation that is replacing the DSP constellation.

click images to enlarge

The lower of the two images above (it is slightly blurry because it is the edge of the image) also shows one of the initial UNID's of that night, "UNID 2", one that Cees and Ted later identified as the classified Italian military communications satellite Sicral 1 (2001-005A), which has recently been moved to 22 E.

Cees also managed to identify another UNID I imaged that night, "UNID 3":

click image to enlarge

It is the object we amateur trackers designate as Unknown 130929 (2013-772A), an object in a Molniya orbit which was last seen 132 days before my observations (i.e. we temporarily "lost" it). It was over West Africa at an altitude of 1270 km at the time of observation, moving away from perigee:

Two other UNID's of this night remain to be identified. One of these ("UNID 1") appears to be in GTO: the other one ("UNID 4") appears to be in LEO and was very faint.

The image below shows two classified objects (plus several commercial geosats), both US Military communications satellites: USA 236 (2012-033A) and WGS 3 (2009-068A). WGS 3 is the third satellite in the Wideband Global Satcom constellation. USA 236 is a geostationary SDS data relay satellite. It is believed that they notably relay imagery of IMINT satellites in LEO, for example optical imageryby  KH-11 Keyhole/CRYSTAL and radar imagery by Lacrosse and FIA.

click image to enlarge

Mentor 4 and Thuraya 2 change of configuration

A change is occurring in the configuration of Mentor 4 (USA 202, 2009-001A), a huge Mentor /ORION SIGINT satellite, and the commercial communications satellite Thuraya 2. For over 3 years, Mentor 4 was stationed (as seen from my observing location) slightly south of Thuraya 2. On my June 21 imagery, it has moved to slightly North of Thuraya 2. Compare the top image from last June 21 with some images shot in previous years:

21 June 2014:

8 December 2010:

18 November 2012:

29 December 2013:

click images to enlarge

(The first image also shows the still unidentified UNID 1, likely in GTO, and  a classified r/b from another Mentor/ORION launch, Mentor 3 r/b (2003-041B)).

[UPDATED] Three UNID's in GEO/GTO/HEO/MEO, SBIRS GEO 2, and Lacrosse 5 has manoeuvered

Updated 14:35 UT (Jun 23) to reflect that I found a third UNID on my imagery after writing the original post

click image to enlarge

Saturday/Sunday night 21/22 June was very clear. As I had some trouble getting to sleep, I decided to make use of it to do a survey of the GEO belt, from my secondary site Cospar 4355 which is in the polder just outside of town, some 10-15 minutes by bicycle. The sky is a bit darker there and I have a better view to low elevations. Using the 1.4/85mm Samyang lens, I can expose twice as long as I can from my regular town center site 4353. The downside: so many objects on the images to identify and measure....

This observing site, in a polder park with meadows and polder ditches, is very tranquile. A choir of frogs was chanting during my observations, and meadow birds were adding their voice too. As I was observing, a low blanket of ground fog started to form, with my camera on tripod popping up just above it.


Two Three UNID's

At the moment I am still slowly working myself through the 54 images taken, identifying objects, but I can already report that I captured two three UNID objects (for positions on the 3rd see here), two in GTO/GEO and one in MEOor HEO. They are not in the Space-Track catalogue nor in our classified catalogue.

click image to enlarge

UNID 1 was observed as a small trail on several images taken between 23:05:32 and 23:23:32 UT (June 21). The 15 second image above shows it near the SIGINT satellite Mentor 4 (2009-001A) and is the first image that captured it. It looks like something in GTO and a very cautious orbit fit to this short 18 minute observation arc indeed suggests a GTO-like, roughly 13160 x 36945 km, 12.8 degree inclined orbit with a period of ~1.6 revolutions per day:

UNID 1                                               13160 x 36945 km
1 00000U 00000X   14172.96808160 0.00000000  00000-0  00000+0 0    05
2 00000  12.7577 311.8608 3783132 187.8049 143.4679  1.55784798    00

click image to enlarge

UNID 2 was detected on only two 20 second images taken half a minute apart. It is less trail like (see image above), but slowly moving south when the measurements on the two images are combined. It is either in a somewhat inclined GEO orbit or a GTO object near apogee.

The image above also shows SBIRS GEO 2 (2013-011A), a classified geostationary SBIRS satellite (an Early Warning satellite looking for missile launches in Infra-Red). In addition, an old Russian r/b and a Russian military GLONASS (the Russian equivalent of GPS) satellite are visible. Star trails are slightly blurry because the FOV represents a detail near the edge of the image.

click image to enlarge

[UPDATE] 
UNID 3 was detected close to alpha Serpens in only two 20 second images taken 1 minute apart.  It is clearly trailing. The positions fit either a circular MEO orbit, or a HEO orbit (the observation arc is too short to discriminate). Above, the two images that captured it are shown.


Lacrosse 5 appears to have manoeuvered

The same image that captured UNID 1 also captured the military Radar satellite Lacrosse 5 (2005-016A, see image in top of this post), just as it was emerging from Earth shadow. It was about 54 seconds late relative to 8-day-old elements. That is a lot for only 8 day old elements. Hence it appears to have manoeuvered somewhere in the past few days.

An unknown object in (near) Geostationary orbit: Express AM-5?

The evening of December 29 2013 started clear, so I did a small survey of a part of the geostationary belt. Main focus of the session was PAN, as well as Mentor 4 and 6.

Inspecting the images I found an unidentified object in near-Geostationary orbit some 4 degrees east of PAN, between Mentor 6 and NSS 5, on several images (positions here). The image below shows it near M42, the Orion nebula, near 19:17 UT:

click image to enlarge

In addition to the UNID you can also see a classified satellite at left, Mentor 6 (2012-034A), a SIGINT satellite also known under the code name Advanced Orion. At right are two commercial geostationary satellites, NSS 5 (1997-053A) and Galaxy 26 (1999-005A).

Cees Bassa in the Netherlands and Greg Roberts in South Africa also observed what is likely the same UNID object later that night. While it is not easy to fit a reliable orbit to such a relatively short span of observations, the suggestion is an object with an inclination near 0 and a Mean Motion of about 0.92 revolutions per day, i.e. an object near Geostationary altitudes.

The Mean Motion could suggest an old object being moved to a Graveyard Orbit. If this is the case, we haven't been able to identify which 'old' object it is yet.

Another option is that this is a new object. The only likely candidate in that case is the Russian satellite Express AM-5 which was launched on December 26th. This object seems to have been temporarily "lost" by JSpOC: as I write this (Jan 2),  Space-Track does not list orbital elements later than December 26th (when it was still in  a temporary transfer orbit).

For the moment, Mike McCants has given it the name UNK 131229 (with the acronym UNK meaning "Unknown").

This observing session also served to check on PAN (2009-047A). PAN is a highly mobile satellite and often moves position in May and December (I have written on the mystery of this satellite before). Not this time, it seems: it is still at the position it has been in for several months, forming a trio with the commercial satellites Yahsat 1B and Intelsat 10:

click image to enlarge

Other classified objects imaged this night were the old SIGINT Mercury 1 (USA 105, "Advanced Vortex", 1994-054A), and the SIGINT Mentor 4 (USA 202, 2009-001A). Mercury 1 was placed at 48 E and recovered by me about a year ago.

click images to enlarge

During this observing session, I captured a bright irregular orange light moving across the sky: a 'Thai Lantern' ( a miniature hot-air balloon). They are the cause of many false fireball and re-entry reports. Here it is, moving through Orion while carried by the wind:

Two days earlier, on December 27, I also did my periodic check on Prowler (90-097E), using the 61-cm Cassegrain of Sierra Stars Observatory in Markleeville, California (MPC G68).

I concluded the evening of the 29th by making some shots of M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. Unfortunately, some thin haze came in after a while. The image below is a stack of 16 haze-free images of 30 seconds exposure each, with a CLS filter (against light pollution - the images were taken from Leiden town center)) and Zeiss 2.8/180mm lens piggyback on the mount of my C6:

click image to enlarge

UNID geosat Unknown 121118 is probably the classified SIGINT Mercury 1 (94-054A)

As I reported on this blog earlier, I discovered an unidentified object in an 8.4 degree inclined geosynchronous orbit in the evening of November 18 (see images below). It was given the designation "Unknown 121118" and also observed by Greg Roberts from South Africa the next evening, showing it to be truely geosynchronous at longitude 48 E.

click images to enlarge

I initially thought it would probably be a commercial satellite that had been recently relocated. However, as USSTRATCOM has still not identified the object, we are beginning to suspect it is a classified object, and we have some idea of its identity.

Ted Molczan pointed out that the 8.44 degree inclination is similar to that of Mercury 1 (94-054A). The brightness of the object is similar too. Mercury 1 was last located over the western Atlantic near 43 W, and had not been observed for over two months. Peter Wakelin imaged its former position on November 21 and could not find it. So there is a good chance it has been moved, and is my Unknown 121118, now located at 48 E.

click map to enlarge

The Mercury (also known as 'Advanced Vortex' ) geostationary satellites are classified US military SIGINT ('eavesdropping') satellites. Two were launched during the 1990-ies: the launch of a third one failed when the rocket booster malfunctioned, destroying the satellite. Mercury 1 (94-054A) launched on 27 August 1994 was the first. Given that it now appears to have been repositioned and is station-keeping at 48 E, is appears to be still operational, 18 years after it was launched.

Why it has been repositioned over 48 E, somewhere within the last two months (and probably near the more recent part of that timespan) is a matter of speculation. Maybe it is monitoring communications on the Syria-Turkey border; maybe it is listening in on Iran; or maybe it is monitoring communications of Somalian pirates near the Horn of Africa.

In June this year I imaged Mercury 1's sister ship Mercury 2 (see here), which was of a similar brightness as 'Unknown 121118'. That object at that time seemed headed for a graveyard orbit and hasn't been observed for a while. It has a slightly larger orbital inclination than Mercury 1 / Unknown 121118.

PAN, other Geostationary satellites, and another UNID (this time Greg's)

As reported earlier I had a prolific observing session on Geostationary satellites in the evening of November 18th, discovering amongst others an unidentified geostationary object now temporarily designated Unknown 121118 (see here and follow-up here with imagery by Greg from S-Africa: an more on it near the end of the current post).

Below is some more imagery showing various classified and unclassified objects. All images were made using a Canon EOS 60D with a SamYang 1.4/85mm lens at ISO 1000.


Unknown 20121117 (Greg's UNID)

The November 18th imagery includes imagery of a second unidentified object, Unknown 121117 discovered by Greg Roberts (CoSaTrak) from South Africa a day earlier on the 17th (a third initially reported  'unid 'by Greg turned out to be identifiable as a known object, a Chinese CZ-3C r/b). So Greg recovered my Nov 18th UNID on the 19th, and I recovered Greg's Nov 17 UNID on the 18th: nice teamwork!

The image below shows it together with a number of nearby commercial geosats (the veil-like lighter streaks in the image are cirrus clouds, who had begone to invade an initially clear sky):

click image to enlarge

Below is one of Greg's images of the object from 17 November taken from S-Africa: in my image above taken a day later the object has drifted quite a distance more to the West.

(image courtesy Greg Roberts, CoSatTrak S-Africa)

Unknown 121117 is a truely uncatalogued object. There is nevertheless some idea about the identity of this satellite, but I am currently not allowed to provide more information.



PAN

PAN (09-047A) and the nearby commercial geosat Paksat 1R visible in Greg's Nov 17th image are visible on my Nov 18th imagery as well. The image below basically fits to the upper image above (see the Eutelsat pair visible in both images), giving you a sense how Greg's Unknown 2012117 has moved in a day time:

click image to enlarge

I have written about PAN on this blog several times before: it is an enigmatic classified satellite that frequently relocates.


Mentor 4, Thuraya 2 and the Mentor 1r

Among the other objects imaged were the SIGINT Mentor 4 (and the nearby commercial satellite Thuraya 2), and a r/b from the Mentor 1 launch, Mentor 1r.

Mentors (the biggest geostationary satellites in existence and the biggest man-made objects in space with exception of the ISS) are relatively bright objects (typically mag. +8):

click image to enlarge

I already posted imagery of another Mentor, Mentor 5, as well as the SIGINT Vortex 6 in an earlier post.


More on my UNID, Unknown 121118

This object in an 8.5 degree inclined geosynchronous orbit (see here and here for earlier coverage) remains 'unidentified' (i.e., is not present in public orbital catalogues such as USSTRATCOM's): we are however starting to believe it could be a classified object that has recently been moved to this location from somewhere else. It is currently positioned over 48.3 E and appears stable in longitude:

click map to enlarge

Greg's Nov 19th imagery of my geostationary UNID (UNK121118)

click image to enlarge (image courtesy Greg Roberts)

The imagery above is posted with kind permission of Greg Roberts (CoSaTrak, South Africa). It depicts the same geosynchronous UNID that I imaged from the Netherlands on the 18th, in an image Greg shot from South Africa on the 19th.

This object does not match with anything in USSTRATCOM's current satellite catalogue, or in our classified satellite catalogue. It probably is a commercial satellite that very recently has been relocated to this spot: if so, USSTRATCOM seems not yet aware of it.We have not been able yet to identify which satellite it could be.

For my November 18 discovery imagery of this object, click here.

As the object moves in an orbit with an inclination of 8.1 degrees, it makes a small daily "up and down wobble" perpendicular to the celestial equator (many geosynchronous objects do that). This is the reason it is showing a small trail in this 40-second exposure.

(the nearby object marked EUTE 48A in the imagery is the commercial geostationary satellite Eutelsat 48A)

An Unidentified geostationary object

Yesterday evening was (initially) very clear. I took the opportunity to image the USA 144 decoy (1999-028C)  in the early evening, and then do a survey of the eastern geostationary belt between 23h and 24h LT.

The USA 144 decoy passed close to the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and was caught together with this galaxy and a Breeze-M tank (2011-021C, from the Telstar 14R launch):

click image to enlarge

The session on geostationary satellites later in the evening was ended by incoming cirrus, but not before a fair number of objects was imaged.


A UNID geosat in Orion

Among them was a bright unidentified object in an 8-degree inclined (near-) geostationary orbit captured in several images.

The images below (overview, and then details) show it in Orion together with the Orion nebula, a Chinese r/b (Beidou CZ-3C r/b, 2010-024B), and the classified SIGINT objects Mentor 5 (USA 237, 2012-034A) and Vortex 6 (1989-035A).

click images to enlarge

While the object is unidentified at the moment, it probably is a commercial geostationary satellite that is being moved to a new slot or to a graveyard orbit: but with the tracking network of USSTRATCOM not having noted this yet.

For the moment, the object has been designated as Unknown 121118. It moves in this very approximate orbit (calculated by Mike McCants):

Unknown 121118
1 99991U 12009B   12323.84298080 0.00000000  00000-0  00000-0 0    02
2 99991   8.1179  50.0556 0005003 274.8696  85.1304  1.00270000    07

Initially, I thought it might be the same "unid" reported by Greg in the same general area the day before, but it turns out to be another object. Greg's "unid" was identified by Mike as 2010-024B, a Beidou CZ-3 r/b, actually the same object that can be seen close to USA 237 in the images above.

UPDATE 19-11-2012, 20:20 UT: Greg Roberts just mailed me that he recovered the UNID from South Africa at virtually the same position, so it is geostationary. See follow-up post here.

Is it a bird, or a possible UNID satellite?

Yesterday, asteroid (2397) Lappajarvi would occult the mag. +7.8 star HIP 19971 in Taurus. I was some 106 km outside of the predicted occultation zone but inside the 1-sigma uncertainty zone, so I covered the event using my WATEC 902H video camera and SamYang 1.4/85mm lens (no occultation was seen, as expected).

However: while setting up the system and checking it out with an aim on the Pleiades, I filmed either a bird or a potential UNID satellite:

Integrated still image (click to enlarge):

I cannot 100% exclude that it is a bird, also because objects in LEO mostly would have been in shadow already at this time of the evening and sky direction (relatively low east). The resulting orbit is moreover retrograde (inclination about 127 degrees), which is very rare among satellites.

So maybe it was a bird. It does move very linear (birds usually don't) and doesn't look like other birds I had in view that evening, yet perhaps it was.

UNID-I 3 May 2011 = PAN [UPDATED]

On May 3rd, I found two unidentified geostationary objects close to Galaxy 27 and Intelsat 12 (see report and pictures here).

One, UNID-I, was stable in brightness. The other, UNID-II, was flashing. I imaged UNID-I the next night (May 4th) as well, showing it drifting westwards. I might have imaged UNID-II again too, though misidentifying it at that time as Intelsat 12 (except for the occasionally very bright UNID-II, the objects were, due to worse observing conditions, at the edge of detectability).

At that time (see the link above) there already was some suspicion that UNID-I could be the enigmatic classified geostationary satellite PAN (09-047A), caught in the act of yet another relocation.

That suspicion is now confirmed, following additional imaging by Peter Wakelin from the UK on May 8th. Still drifting when I picked it up on May 3rd, PAN now appears to have settled in a new position at 44.9 E, just west of Galaxy 27 and Intelsat 12. It has moved 2 degrees higher in my local sky, to an altitude of 19 degrees.

The identity of the second, flashing UNID, UNID-II which is still drifting westwards on May 8th, is still uncertain. While it is possibly the Indian communication satellite GSat-2 (03-018A) in the act of relocating, Space-Track still lists that object stable in its usual orbit slot placing it at 48 E. So we have something of a remaining mystery to solve there (although in the end, it will probably turn out to be Gsat-2, with Space-Track for some reason failing yet to recognize it is being moved).

UPDATE 09/05/2011: about an hour after I posted this, Space-Track updated the orbit for Gsat-2, showing that UNID-II is indeed Gsat-2, probably on it's way to the graveyard orbit. So, it appears I beat Space-Track to it by several days!

PAN (09-047A) has a history of frequent relocations, making this already enigmatic satellite the more enigmatic. Previous to this early May 2011 relocation, it relocated in early December 2010, an event that I was the first person to detect as well. So far, it has been located at 33.0 E from late 2009 to May 2010 and then was moved to 38.0 E; then to 49.0 E in December 2010; and now to 44.9 E in May 2011.

[UPDATED] Two Unidentified Geostationary Objects on May 3 and 4

May 3 was an unusually clear evening, and I decided to target a few classified geostationary satellites, using the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180mm.

While imaging the region of PAN (09-047A) and Mentor 4 (09-001A), I found two unidentified objects. Yes: two.

The first object, UNID-I, was discovered close to the commercial geosats Galaxy 27 (99-052A) and Intelsat 12 (00-068A). It was present on multiple images, and the astrometry shows it is stable in declination. It was about as bright as the two commercial geosats, and stable in brightness.

The plot thickened, when a second unidentified object, UNID-II, was discovered just east of the first, just north of the commercial geostationary Syracuse 3A (05-041B). This object was irregular in brightness, alternating between faint and very bright (comparable to Mentor 4 at peak brightness, i.e. about mag. +8).

Below image shows UNID-I near Galaxy 27 and Intelsat 12:

click image to enlarge

The two images below show UNID-II near Syracuse 3A, and the clear flaring behaviour of the UNID.

click image to enlarge

On May 4th, the sky quality was poorer. Nevertheless I tried to recover the two objects, with partial success: UNID-II was captured again on several images.

It had drifted westwards, closer to Galaxy 27 and Intelsat 12 towards the position of UNID-I. The latter was not visible on the images, most likely due to the poor sky quality (Galaxy 27 and Intelsat 12 were barely visible either).

The object showed a clear variable brightness behaviour, being invisible in one image and very bright in the next one taken 30s later. Together with the slowly changing declination, this shows that the object is likely UNID-II, not UNID-I.

Below images were taken 30 seconds apart: the object is bright in one, and invisible in the other:

click image to enlarge

In the series of images, it is present in the following images:

from - to (UTC, May 4th)
---------------------------------------
21:03:02.30 - 21:03:12.35
21:04:02.30 - 21:04:12.35 - very bright
21:05:02.30 - 21:05:12.35
21:07:32.30 - 21:07:42.35
21:08:02.30 - 21:08:12.35
21:08:32.30 - 21:08:42.35 - very bright
21:11:02.30 - 21:11:12.35
21:12:02.30 - 21:12:12.35
21:13:02.30 - 21:13:12.35 - very bright
21:14:02.30 - 21:14:12.35 - very bright
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As can be seen, there is a clear semi-1 minute periodicity in this.

I have no idea as to the true identity of these two objects. As I could find no trace of PAN (09-047A) near Yamal 202 on my May 3rd images, it is possible that UNID-I is PAN once again relocating.

The presence of a second, tumbling/spinning object, UNID-II, close to it however suggests that more is going on. Finding two UNID's close together is definitely weird and might suggest a connection between the two objects.

UNID-II has a small but clear inclination to it's orbit and appears to be drifting westwards. UNID-I is stable in declination, indicating an inclination close to zero. It might be drifting as well (only more observations will tell, given that I failed to find it on May 4th).

UPDATE 5-5-2011:
Ted Molczan feels UNID-II (the flashing one) could be the Indian commercial geosat Gsat 2 (03-018A) in the act of relocating. UNID-I could indeed well be, as I suggested in my report on Satobs, the classified geosat PAN (09-047A) relocating, according to Mike McCants. I captured the same satellite relocating in December last year: this enigmatic satellite is frequently on the move.