Dots and Dashes

At last, a little clear sky. At least in between the clouds. Sat down and looked into Heavens Above for a list of early evening satellites to watch for as the youngest keeps asking, and printed off a long list for last night. Ten all told. Got out for the first one and had a look for Iridium 32. I finally spotted the tell tale moving dot and went to the door to call the youngsters over. This was scheduled to be a mag -8 flare. Some how, I lost track of the satellite at just the wrong moment, whilst I was at the door and missed the flare. Still not seen an Iridium flare yet, this is getting tiresome. Next up, was the Cosmos 1943 Rocket, and didn't manage to see that nor Iridium 90. There was probably a little too much cloud around really and I think they were playing hide and seek in the clouds.

Finally, managed to see the next one, Lacrosse 3 and watched it pass up and over and disappear into the Earths shadow as it approached Gemini. Then whilst trying to find the Cosmos 1154 Rocket, something odd caught my eye. My youngest and I both spotted a fast moving streak, trailing fire to the south of us. It appeared to have bits coming off and disappearing and after only a few short seconds broke up and vanished altogether. A moment later, Cosmos 1154 came sailing across the sky. Whilst I was watching this, there was a second much shorter lived streak of light whizzing across the sky. I didn't catch this as well as the first one, only in preiphery, but the youngest watched it.

Then in came the clouds again.

We managed to see a few objects naked eye, all playing peekaboo behind the clouds. The Pleiades and the Hyades. Orion, Lepus and Sirius. Auriga, Gemini and Mars, all of them in the direction the satellites were being hunted.

At this point we headed in. Had a few things to do through out the evening, and ever the optimist, I kept looking out the back door in the hope that the clouds would be blown away, but no. They just kept getting thicker and thicker. I did one final check just after midnight. I was astonished. No, the clouds hadn't been blown away, but the colour of the underside was totally different. Instead of the usual mix of yellows and whites blotched onto the underside, they were dark. I'd read somewhere that West Sussex turn out a lot of the street lights after midnight, but this was the first time I'd actually seen the effect.