Blinking Satellite?

[SanitysEdge]

I was just looking for Uranus in my SkyQuest XT8 and I noticed something blinking every 20 to 40 seconds to somewhere between mag 4 and 5. I watched it blink for a few minutes and noticed that it was staying in place while the stars rotated. This lead me to believe that is was a geosynchronous satellite. I looked geosynchronous satellites in the area using Starry Night and found that the Direct TV 10 satellite is in the area where the blinking was. Has anyone else noticed anything like this or am I just seeing things? Is it possible for a satellite to blink under its own power to such a high brightness (Its too late for it to be reflecting sunlight but geosync sats are in higher orbits than LEO sats which should mean they are in sunlight for longer, right)?

Additional information: The latitude and longitude for my city is: 42.206, -83.485 and the time was around 7:35 to 7:50PM EST

[Chrissyo]

Some satellites do indeed appear to blink. I believe this is caused by said satellite rotating/spinning in its orbits, and thus the angle of the reflected sunlight is periodic. Someone else could probably correct me on this, but I'm pretty sure its right.

[SanitysEdge]

I find it strange that a Direct TV satellite would be rotating like that. I would expect a communications sat to be tidally locked so it reflects the signal to where it needs to be rather than reflecting it randomly as it tumbles.

Maybe they are having problems with it?

[RickJ]

A quick check indicates DirecTV 10 doesn't rotate, nor does GE 1 and 4 on either side of it. It is their HD satellite and is functional. The ones I've picked up in imaging have all held steady, no blinking and far fainter than your flashes. One at nearly 103W degrees would certainly still be in sunlight at this time of night. But they are far far fainter. Specular reflections though could hit 4 or 5 but at that distance it would be rare i'd think. I've never imaged one anywhere near that bright. Though I only catch them by accident and haven't gone after them on purpose.

The solar panels on it are huge and may oscillate so that at just the right time you'd get flashing as they reflect the sun at just the right angle to hit your spot on earth. Rare but possible I suppose. But do they oscillate -- even a little?

Go back tomorrow and try again at the same time. If it is a specular reflection of the sun it might have moved enough you won't see it though the satellite itself should be seen at say mag 13 or 14 judging by those that drug through my images a time or two.

Rick

[Kaptain K]

I would expect a communications sat to be tidally locked so it reflects the signal to where it needs to be rather than reflecting it randomly as it tumbles.
Comsats don't reflect. They are active. They receive, amplify and retransmit.

[djellison]

Old sats that have been decommissioned might be put into a tumble, and I believe some older designs of sats were infact large rotating drum shapes that might cause flickering.

Doug

[aurora]

I've seen old boosters or abandoned space junk tumbling along, and blinking, many times. But I don't recall ever seeing anything blinking that was geostationary.

[Maksutov]

SanitysEdge, have you seen it since?

[SanitysEdge]

SanitysEdge, have you seen it since?

Not yet, its been cloudy out.

[BrianBiggs]

I just saw a blinking satellite tonight. I was looking for meteors in Orion and I kept seeing a falsh every once in a while. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but I grabbed my binoculars and sure enough, there was definitely a satellite blinking every 20 or 30 seconds. I logged on to see if anyone knew what the satellite might be.

[aurora]

It might not be a satellite, or one that is currently working. Might be an old booster or an old satellite.

[BrianBiggs]

It might not be a satellite, or one that is currently working. Might be an old booster or an old satellite.

Could be. Whatever it was, it seems to be an extremely rare sighting. I have only found two posts anywhere on the interent about a blinking satellite.

[Centaur]

When an artificial satellite is designed to rotate in sync with the Earth, the implication is that it does indeed rotate with a period of nearly 24 hours. A seemingly shorter period may be observed as various portions of the satellite reflect sunlight as the satellite rotates relative to the Sun.

[catstory13]

I thought that I'd report a siting of a blinking satellite a couple days ago at night above the southern horizon. It must have been very high up, since it was moving very slow. The blink was every 20 seconds or so and only lasted a fraction of a second each time. I was with two friends, and we all saw it. It continued until we retired.

[BrianBiggs]

I thought that I'd report a siting of a blinking satellite a couple days ago at night above the southern horizon. It must have been very high up, since it was moving very slow. The blink was every 20 seconds or so and only lasted a fraction of a second each time. I was with two friends, and we all saw it. It continued until we retired.

Did that satellite move or did the stars move behind it? The one I saw was similar to what you describe, but I think that it may have been stationary and the stars were moving behind it (due to the rotation of the earth).

[skintigh]

Were any of these rotating, blinking, unidentified objects saucer-shaped? Better move this to the conspiracy board... ;)

If I ever get my telescope aligned and trained I can try to make a video of one of these blinking satellites.

[BrianBiggs]

Were any of these rotating, blinking, unidentified objects saucer-shaped? Better move this to the conspiracy board... ;)

If I ever get my telescope aligned and trained I can try to make a video of one of these blinking satellites.

Yeah! I forgot to mention that I was obducted that night too :liar:

[Bolasanibk]

Hi,

Is there any website where I can plug in my location and time and get a list of possible satellite sightings.

I have a moving blip in some of my sky pictures I am trying to identify.

Also, do these satellite sightings show color variations? Mine was greenish.

And the first one to joke about LGM gets it from my Korellian death ray. :whistle:

[aurora]

heavens-above.com?

[Bolasanibk]

heavens-above.com?

They don't seem to have a search for past dates.

[Nick]

Try this link:

http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/SSapplications/Post/JavaSSOP/JavaSSOP.html

Go to the sky search tab, you can select a calendar date etc.

Nick

[matthewota]

If you look at the moon through your telescope long enough, you can see satellites transit across the lit portion as silhouettes. I have seen this on a number of occasions.
You can see much more detail that way, such as solar panels.

[mahesh]

...
Is there any website where I can plug in my location and time and get a list of possible satellite sightings.
I have a moving blip in some of my sky pictures I am trying to identify.
Also, do these satellite sightings show color variations? Mine was greenish.

Bolasani.... try this: http://www.n2yo.com/?s=33442

It's got data for umpteen satellites. Bear in mind this is a real-time tracking site. You could in fact identify the 'blips' in your photographs, before you capture them!

Watch out for the tool bag.... That Tool Bag!

[mahesh]

If you look at the moon through your telescope long enough, you can see satellites transit across the lit portion as silhouettes. I have seen this on a number of occasions.
You can see much more detail that way, such as solar panels.

that's interesting mathew...how do you do that ? i have enough trouble, keeping the Moon centered in my 'scope as it is, despite the drive...

i have seen a plane fly across her face once though, whilst looking through binoculars..

[NEOWatcher]

heavens-above.com?
They don't seem to have a search for past dates.
I'm not sure what you are expecting when you say "search". But; if you go to the "daily predictions" chart, all you have to do is go "prev PM" or "prev AM" until you get to your day. (I don't know how far back they go, but I've gone farther than one week)

[Bolasanibk]

Thanks for the links everybody.

NEOWatcher, I followed the daily predictions link to the date in question. But I could'nt see anything in near the time and place of my 'blip'.

The NASA site did give me a couple of satellites which were close enough that they could have been my blips. Thanks for the link Nick.

Thanks for the warning Mahesh. I will keep my golf club handy. :)

Regards

[Nick]

I just found another interesting link today whilst setting up XEphem.

This has a list of satellites and you can zoom in to you location and it reports the location of said satellite:

http://www.satsig.net/maps/lat-long-finder.htm

Nick

[Gsquare]

I was just looking for Uranus in my SkyQuest XT8 and I noticed something blinking every 20 to 40 seconds to somewhere between mag 4 and 5. I watched it blink for a few minutes and noticed that it was staying in place while the stars rotated. This lead me to believe that is was a geosynchronous satellite. I looked geosynchronous satellites in the area using Starry Night and found that the Direct TV 10 satellite is in the area where the blinking was. Has anyone else noticed anything like this or am I just seeing things? Is it possible for a satellite to blink under its own power to such a high brightness (Its too late for it to be reflecting sunlight but geosync sats are in higher orbits than LEO sats which should mean they are in sunlight for longer, right)?

Additional information: The latitude and longitude for my city is: 42.206, -83.485 and the time was around 7:35 to 7:50PM EST

Sanity ; I just posted this on another post and then came across yours....
It a site that has a declination calculator for geosynchronous satelittes for your particular latitude....so you can dettermine definitively if what you saw was a geosyn sat.

see here:
http://www.mistisoftware.com/astronomy/FSQ106_GeoSynSat.htm

BTW, most geosyn sats. run about mag. 11 or higher, but apparently do sometimes reach mag. 5 - 6 .

G^2

[Gsquare]

I was just looking for Uranus in my SkyQuest XT8 and I noticed something blinking every 20 to 40 seconds to somewhere between mag 4 and 5. I watched it blink for a few minutes and noticed that it was staying in place while the stars rotated. This lead me to believe that is was a geosynchronous satellite. I looked geosynchronous satellites in the area using Starry Night and found that the Direct TV 10 satellite is in the area where the blinking was. Has anyone else noticed anything like this or am I just seeing things? Is it possible for a satellite to blink under its own power to such a high brightness (Its too late for it to be reflecting sunlight but geosync sats are in higher orbits than LEO sats which should mean they are in sunlight for longer, right)?

Additional information: The latitude and longitude for my city is: 42.206, -83.485 and the time was around 7:35 to 7:50PM EST

Sanity ; I just posted this on another post and then came across yours....
It a site that has a declination calculator for geosynchronous satelittes for your particular latitude....so you can determine definitively if what you saw was a geosyn sat.

see here:
http://www.mistisoftware.com/astronomy/FSQ106_GeoSynSat.htm

BTW, most geosyn sats. run about mag. 11 or higher, but apparently do sometimes reach mag. 5 - 6 .

G^2

[spumn]

Tonight I observed a blinking point source through my 10x50 binoculars. The flashes only lasted for a short fraction of a second, and recurred every 10 to 20 seconds or so, although I did not attempt to measure this period, and I got the impression that it was somewhat irregular anyway, as was the peak brightness (although I am confident it sometimes exceeded magnitude 7). The source was located in Cassiopeia near the magnitude 7 star 4023-1179 (Tycho-2 catalogue) at about 2:00 a.m. (UTC-5, CDT) from my location in the Chicago suburbs. This yields RA 0:30:50 Dec +64:48:07. At first I thought it was totally stationary relative to the stars, but after a while I discerned its motion. My very, very rough estimate of its angular velocity is about a quarter of a degree per minute, roughly straight down toward the horizon (inclined no more than perhaps 10 degrees from the vertical).

The irregular blinking suggests that whatever I observed is a derelict old satellite or rocket tumbling on multiple axes. Considering I saw it to the North (and I live in the Northern hemisphere), the declination is completely wrong for geosynchronous orbit. Instead, the observed motion relative to the celestial sphere suggests a more or less polar orbit.

Any thoughts?