Message posted by Griffon_314 on September 18, 2007 at 5:54:22 PST:
You are almost certainly observing satellites in low earth orbit. I say this because: 1) Times: The times that you are seeing the objects, correspond to the times when satellites are most visible - when the sun is below the local horizon, but not below the satellite's horizon (early evening, and before sunrise). 2) Appearance: A small moving white light describes how most satellites appear. The 1-2 second pulse period that you've seen some objects display, is again very typical of low-earth orbit objects. Discarded rocket bodies tumble, resulting in a flash period like you've seen. 3) Direction: North-south tracks are typical of polar orbiting satellites and their boosters. Many of the brightest low-earth objects are in polar orbits. 4) Lack of Maneuvering: LEO satellites don't maneuver, so this is more evidence that they are what you're seeing. 5) Distance: is virtually impossible to judge on a point light in the night sky. I'd suggest you check out these websites: http://www.satobs.org The next time you're scheduled to work on a clear night, enter your position into Heavens Above, and it will print out a list of predicted visible satellites for you, complete with the times they will appear, and diagrams of where in the sky they will travel. Of course, none of this means you aren't seeing classified military activity - many of the visible low-earth satellites are classified IMINT or radar imaging satellites that NORAD doesn't disclose. A global network of amateur observers cooperate to track those sats - the details are on satobs.org - you could contribute to this group by making detailed observations of them. And there is a connection to Groom Lake, too. Some of these spy sats belong to other countries, and the folks at Groom carefully monitor when these sats are predicted to fly overhead, so they can hide anything they don't want seen.
and
http://www.heavens-above.com/
In Reply to: Possible Groom Lake Vehicle? posted by Jay W on September 17, 2007 at 20:51:06 PST:
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