NOSS triplet

[Leegsi]

Anyone see the group of 3 satellites in a triangle formation tonight?

If you did it was the NOSS triplet

[Hypernova]

Heavens above predicts another pass tonight starting at around 23.54 and lasting until about 00:09. I would love to see this formation but typically the forecast is for cloud tonight

[Leegsi]

Clouds here too.

Where did you find that info as I cant see it?

[Star child]

I saw it to! I am really glad you posted about this becuase i was wondering if my eyes were playing tricks on me when i saw these, i was actually looking for a iridium flare when i saw them, i think i missed the flare becuase i was distracted by the triangle formation which was in the same direction as the flare was sue to appear but higher up than it should have been.

It was quite exciting but i really thought it may have been some kind of reflection effect from my glasses and also i have a eye injury from a BB gun which sometimes causes me to see double images of bright lights, but not triple images, and i tried looking around at other objects to see if it was soem kind of reflection in my glasses and i couldnt recreate that effect so i was quite confident that i had seen a triangle of sattelites, they were fairly bright as well wernt they? I am also in Hampshire, i wonder if only people down here in the south saw them, can you confirm that they appered at about 40 degrees AZ sort of WSW direction heading ESE?

I also cant find any info on NOSS passes on Heavens above please let us know how to find that info Hypernova!

I am supprised there hasnt been a load of UFO reports from that, if i didnt know about sattelites i think i would have been quite freaked out by 3 star like objects flying in formation, and from what i can remember it wasnt like the ISS where you can see it come over the hirizon, these were more like a iridum flare just appearing as if from no where, making them very UFO like to someone who doesnt know about such things as NOSS triplets!

[Star child]

actually i just noticed the date you posted, my sighting was on the night of the 8th at around 22:57

[Hypernova]

I also cant find any info on NOSS passes on Heavens above please let us know how to find that info Hypernova!

I check all three of the general satellite pages and do a page sarch (ctrl+f) for the word noss, it doesn't do it every night as I'd imagine and you should check every night, but the nights when there is there would be three noss satellites within a few rows of each other. You should notice that they all originate from the same direction and follow the same path.

[gliderpilot]

We saw them on our last Salisbury Plain observing session. Quite an unusual sight to see three in formation as nearly all satellites travel in their own independent orbits.

Do you know what the NOSS satellites did? I was under the impression they were a secret spy satellite grouping.

Mark

[acey]

I've seen them in the past - quite a striking sight. Couldn't find NOSS on Heavens Above when I tried searching a while back.

There are some NOSS links in this thread:

http://stargazerslounge.com/observing-discussion/104866-do-satellites-travel-pairs.html

[Stu]

I searched with wildcard characters ie %NOSS% on Heavens Above, and it finds a whole range of references to the different satellite and rocket elements.

If you check on the link already posted ie

NOSS Double and Triple Satellite Formations

you should be able to identify which ones you are looking at. Haven't managed to do that myself yet but should be possible

Cheers

[Stu]

Just found that NOSS 2-1 components C, D and E and also NOSS 1-7 (listed as NOSS 7) components D,E and H seem to be the two that are still orbitting in formation. Hope that helps

[LukeSkywatcher]

I've only seen pictures of the triplet.