CAS500-2 Rideshare: VSFB SLC-4E - 2026-05-03 6:59 UTC

@gigasignal contacted me in private, and asked if I had any optical observations. This happenend to be so. These polar orbits drift in view of the camera every now and then. I am a bit lost in the identifications, I list only Space Track TLE numbers. Here they are:

69003 Not seen:

68981 Not seen:

69012:

69013:

69013 and 69011:

69011:

68990 Not seen:

69010, if this is still Drishti, then it is still in solid shape, and didn’t disintegrate :slight_smile: :

69019:

68989:

68988 Not seen:

68980:

A few were automatically detected, and gave these sky coordinates:

68989 26 100K   0794 E 20260516233327243 17 25 1035309+460911 37 S
69010 26 100AG  0794 E 20260516233217755 17 25 1022288+421566 37 S
69010 26 100AG  0794 E 20260516233225814 17 25 1037780+384125 37 S
69011 26 100AH  0794 E 20260516233137983 17 25 1035568+401264 37 S
69012 26 100AJ  0794 E 20260516233019045 17 25 1013917+460575 37 S
69012 26 100AJ  0794 E 20260516233027701 17 25 1032602+421213 37 S

A few were seen but to faint to be automatically detected: 69013, 69019, 68980.
Some where not detected: 68981, 69003, 68990, 68988. Could be small objects of course.
Others did not pass the camera. This can be seen in this plot:

The yellow lines are all satellites of this launch. The white square is the expcted FOV of the camera. The red circles are all detected satellites (any launch) of the other night.

Hope this is useful. Cheers, Eelke.

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