Bright Lights in the Night Sky, My Chance to Use NASA's Satellite Tracker!

THE STARS AT NIGHT ARE BIG AND BRIGHT, deep in the heart of...RAMSEY, MN! It's true! I slept over at my parents' place this weekend and right before I hopped into bed the night of February 26, 2010, I looked up at the night sky. I like to do this whenever I'm out in the 'burbs because, as a city-dweller, I don't often get the chance to stargaze.

But what the heck? There was a star pulsing like all the others, but was pulsing red, blue, green, and white! I didn't immediately think UFO, but I did think it was the International Space Station (ISS) and I got very excited about that.

There were two other not-as-prominent blinkers in the sky that seemed to be pulsing red and white. But I concentrated on the brightest, most colorful spot. I zoomed my camera in as far as it would go and propped it up into a pair of binoculars so I could get the above video footage (sorry it's so shaky -- that's me, not the lights). Then I got online to find NASA's ISS tracker to see if that's what I was seeing for sure.

That colorful blinking light, sadly, was not party time on the ISS. Ok -- so what was it then? Most likely a satellite, spinning and reflecting light which made it appear to be blinking. But we live in the future now, so during my internet search, I was able to find out exactly what satellite it was -- as well as what those two other ones might be.
This neato NASA Skywatch 2.0 java applet (click the Skysearch tab) was a helpful search tool that "provides information you need to view the International Space Station, the Shuttle (when it is flying), and any of seven other satellites from wherever you are in the world."

The list gave me three sightings for that night:



One was for the FAST satellite. Because of the colorful waves eminating between Earth and the satellite in the official NASA image to the left, I tend to think this is the satellite I saw. FAST was launched on August 21, 1996. According to the website, "FAST's one year mission duration will be highlighted by this period of intense spacecraft and scientific activity. The measurements made by FAST will address a a broad range of scientific objectives in such areas as: Electron and ion acceleration by parallel E-fields, Wave heating of ions-ion conics, Electrostatic double layers, Field-aligned currents, Kilometric radiation, and General wave/particle interactions."

Another possible satellite was AJISAI (EGS). Click that link and get a load of all 318 mirrors on that disco ball. According to the link, "Ajisai is Japanese for Hydrangea. Prior to launch, the satellite was called Experimental Geodetic Satellite (EGS). The Ajisai mission has two primary objectives. The first objective, which was short term, was testing of NASDA's (now JAXA) H-I, two-stage, launch vehicle. The second and primary long term objective was to determine the exact positions of the many isolated Japanese Islands. Ajisai can also be used for directional and photometric observations, using the mirrors equipped on the surface of satellite." This is also a good candidate for what I saw because, according to Wikipedia, "There is a flash produced when the sun's reflection from one of the satellite's mirrors crosses an observer's position on the earth. Due to the satellite's rotation, and the changing geometry as the satellite moves along its orbit, EGP produces several of these flashes per second. EGP can take up to 18 minutes to cross the sky.
EGP's flashes are visible in binoculars if the observer is on the nighttime side of the planet, and the satellite is in sunlight while its orbital trajectory takes it above the observer's horizon. These conditions are often met in the hours after sunset, and the hours before sunrise. When EGP enters the earth's shadow, the stream of flashes abruptly ceases."
And the final option is a satellite named COSMOS 482 DEB. I'm pretty sure this is not the one, though perhaps it is the cause of the smaller red and white spots I saw. What's pretty interesting about this satellite is that it is no longer really a satellite. According to NASA, its status is DEBRIS, hence the DEB in its name. It was first launched March 31, 1972 and, according to The Planetary Society, COSMOS 482 was a failed Venus lander mission. "The final stage of the rocket carrying the spacecraft into orbit failed and it was unable to achieve the necessary trajectory to carry it on to Venus."