Geostationary Satellites in the Wild Duck at Shingletown

by Peter Natscher

When I first saw these tiny star-like objects streaming out of the M11 field. I thought I was hallucinating. I called Bob Jardine set up net to me to take a look to verify my observation. The sats were of a similar mag. as the M11 cluster stars and the effect of them streaming in-line into, across, and out of the cluster was dramatic. Further observation minutes later showed continued with more sats entering the M11 field, passing through, and leaving the same way as the previous ones.

Back in 1997 in Belmont, I remember observing the same thing but in reverse from my driveway with my past 14.5" Starmaster. A waxing gibbous moon lay in the Virgo region just N. of the celestial equator and I was observing the moon at about 80X. At that time, a string of 7-9 evenly spaced tiny black dots (~ 10 arc-min. separation) crossed the moon in a E.-W. direction for me to see. Each one's speed was even between each other and each one took about 30 sec. to traverse the moon's disk. I saw 2-3 at a time upon the moon's disk. I'll always remember that observation.

Posted on sf-bay-tac Jun 25, 2004 16:31:05 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Jan 02, 2005 13:33:51 PT