The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch S03E09 - UAP Disappearing "into Thin Air" [satellite going behind cloud/entering Earth's shadow]

[jimmyslippin]

During The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch episode "Closer Encounters" (S03E09 - air date 5 July 2022) the team observes a "UAP" disappearing into thin air while conducting an experiment involving rocket launches and "laser space cannons." According to Travis Taylor this is further evidence of the existence of a portal above Skinwalker Ranch.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebEm4nqbkuM&t=443s


Travis Taylor: "What did it disappear into? There's... it's not cloudy?"

Watching on an OLED television with HDR enabled, this observation from Travis seems to be wildly incorrect, as the object quite clearly moves behind a patch of cloud. Below is a contrast adjusted image illustrating the presence of clouds in the upper right quadrant. If the cloud wasn't immediately obvious the complete absence of stars in that area is a dead giveaway. There was also significant cloud cover seen throughout the entire day of testing during this episode, particularly during the twilight hours after sunset.

So what is it? My suspicion is that it's just a mundane satellite, most likely of the Starlink variety. Travis Taylor believes it isn't, as it appears to be moving too fast. Is he right?

To answer this question, I first attempted to determine when the events of this episode took place.

After a bit of digging around I came across a Facebook post dated October 25, 2021, belonging to the Skinwalker Ranch Facebook public group (Facebook post) where several individuals posted images of blue lights emanating from the Skinwalker Ranch area. One commenter posted an image that illustrates three discernable blue lights in the sky matching what is shown in the episode. The OP states that the event took place the night before.

Further in the comments someone posted a FAA Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) notice issued for the reason "TO PROVIDE A SAFE ENVIRONMENT FOR ROCKET LAUNCH ACTIVITY." The restriction was in effect from October 24, 2021 17:00 UTC through October 25, 2021 05:59 UTC which translates to October 24, 2021 11:00 AM through 23:59 PM local time (MDT).

This has been verified with an archive search of the FAA NOTAMS database using Date: 2021-10-24 and Location: ZLC:

The lat/long coordinates puts the center of the 3NM radius flight restriction zone right over Skinwalker Ranch.

So it seems highly likely that this experiment - a combination of rocket launches and a laser show - was conducted on October 24, 2021.

This event takes place at 9:31 PM according to the time shown onscreen. It's not entirely clear if the video is being analyzed in real time or shortly after it was recorded. In any case, given the nature of "reality" television I wouldn't trust this time as being accurate.

Using Astrometry.net, I was able to determine that the area of the sky the object is moving through is the Cygnus constellation. The circled object is the "UAP."

Results here -> https://nova.astrometry.net/user_images/9988927#annotated

The Cygnus constellation is directly overhead Skinwalker Ranch (N 40° 15' 29.88", W 109° 53' 16.44") at 9:31 PM on October 24, 2021.

I tried using Stellarium and its satellite plugin to identify any possible matches but the Starlink data I was sourcing was highly erratic. The toolset for in-the-sky.org seemed quite limited and I eventually gave up, but not before identifying a few Starlink orbit paths that were very close to what was seen in this episode:

Starlink-1478 ~20:47
Starlink-2178 ~21:05
Starlink-1041 ~21:28

In any case, I am probably at the limit of what I can achieve here with my skillset. I'm thinking that someone with proficiency in image and video editing could overlay an equatorial grid to the original videos and perform some calculations to help determine:

1) the trajectory of the object
2) the speed of the object

Anyone with a better handle on tools like Stellarium, in-the-sky.org and others (probably most people that have used them... lol) may be able to find a better match than I was able to.

Here are the isolated full screen UAP videos extracted from the program.

 

[flarkey]

@jimmyslippin you said...

This event takes place at 9:31 PM according to the time shown onscreen.

where is this in the YouTube video?

 

[jimmyslippin]

@jimmyslippin you said...


where is this in the YouTube video?

6:50

 

[flarkey]

6:50

View attachment 68573

yep, sorry, just found it and edited my post above. (cut & pasted below for thread consistency)

edit. Found it. I think what the 9.31pm time indicates is the examination of the video in the HQ, not the time of the UAP appearance. I think that is earlier. And if the hypothesis that it's a satellite is true, it wouldn't be as late as 2131L at the Skinwalker Ranch on 24 Oct. The last satellite that reaches that elevation and magnitude is much earlier in the evening according to in-the-sky.org.

 

[FatPhil]

So what is it? My suspicion is that it's just a mundane satellite, most likely of the Starlink variety. Travis Taylor believes it isn't, as it appears to be moving too fast. Is he right?

Just busking the numbers: if a starlink satellite's in typical LEO, perpendicular to you, and about twenty-something degrees away as it reflects light from the sun that's forty-something degrees below your horizon, then you're about 40% of the distance to the satellite that the centre of the earth is, and therefore its angular velocity will be about 2.5x higher at its peak. So rather than 4 degrees per minute, it will pass you at 10 degrees per minute, or 6 seconds per degree, or 3 seconds to cross the moon.

That sounds reasonable, but of course, that doesn't make it actually correct.

 

[John J.]

Travis Taylor's chain of logic,
tiny moving light in sky, tiny moving light light in sky no longer visible, therefore portal
(whatever a portal might be) is somewhat questionable.

Surely Mr Taylor realises that there are more likely explanations, not least because we have no real evidence that "portals" exist at all- considering the likelihood of other explanations, this video can't really be regarded as evidence.

Wonder what Travis really thinks? He's not really contributing to educating the public, I don't think.

 

[flarkey]

Hey @jimmyslippin - I think I've identified the satellite. Looking at your video we can see that the UFO is moving in the direction of the arrow below:

The direction of movement can then be put onto the annotated starmap, showing its path relativve to the consteallation Cygnus. It disappears just as it passes the star Deneb.

I went to in-the-sky.org set the coordinates of the observer to close to Skinwalker Ranch...

40.26°N
109.89°W
GMT-06:00

... and then went to the Menu > Spacecraft > Find Bright Satellite Passes , set the date to 24 October 2021, set the magnitude to 'All objects illuminated by the sun' and updated the table .

If the UFO was a satellite it would have to be pretty high elevation, so I went to the highest one that was shown in the table...

And this is the chart for the full pass. Its very close to the path of the UFO in the video, and it disappears just after it has passed the star Deneb as it enters's the earth's shadow at 20:05:53 Local time.

CSS is the core module of the Chinese Space Station and looks like this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianhe_core_module

And for those that want to check in Stellarium, here's the valid orbital data:

0 CSS (TIANHE-1)
1 48274U 21035A 21295.90862762 .00005009 00000-0 62585-4 0 9999
2 48274 41.4697 224.1728 0006726 240.5427 202.4055 15.60684462 27671
0 CSS (TIANHE-1)
1 48274U 21035A 21295.96651600 .00005466 00000-0 67917-4 0 9993
2 48274 41.4696 223.8202 0006603 242.4900 166.1245 15.60685457 27687
0 CSS (TIANHE-1)
1 48274U 21035A 21296.14315635 .00008348 00000-0 10155-3 0 9992
2 48274 41.4700 222.7457 0006714 241.5504 80.8159 15.60692096 27702
0 CSS (TIANHE-1)
1 48274U 21035A 21296.30278694 .00010224 00000-0 12341-3 0 9998
2 48274 41.4702 221.7745 0006677 242.5140 257.9099 15.60697988 27736
0 CSS (TIANHE-1)
1 48274U 21035A 21296.49883494 .00011980 00000-0 14383-3 0 9996
2 48274 41.4703 220.5820 0006714 243.5322 279.8338 15.60705587 27760
0 CSS (TIANHE-1)
1 48274U 21035A 21296.74050550 .00020333 00000-0 24084-3 0 9994
2 48274 41.4700 219.1102 0006697 244.7972 198.2177 15.60731669 27808
0 CSS (TIANHE-1)
1 48274U 21035A 21296.80685465 .00023713 00000-0 27996-3 0 9990
2 48274 41.4698 218.7065 0006754 245.2503 211.0595 15.60742840 27819
0 CSS (TIANHE-1)
1 48274U 21035A 21296.86547910 .00025288 00000-0 29815-3 0 9999
2 48274 41.4699 218.3498 0006788 245.5794 180.5604 15.60749710 27823

https://www.space-track.org/basicsp...RAD_CAT_ID,EPOCH/format/3le/OBJECT_NAME/CSS~~

I'm pretty sure thats what they have captured in the video, and the reason the UAP disappears is because it is a satellite entering the earth's shadow.

 

[flarkey]

Also there's a part in the video where the Pan and Tilt (elevation) angles for the camera are shown

Pan (bearing) 346.8 degrees, and Tilt (Elevation) 83 degrees. That puts the camera pointing at the same point that the CSS satellite entered the earth's shadow.

 

[Ann K]

It's OK, Travis, the "portal" may have swallowed your light but it gave another little one back to you. That must be it: it couldn't have been just another star emerging from the cloud that you've tried so hard not to see.

 

[jimmyslippin]

Pan (bearing) 346.8 degrees, and Tile (Elevation) 83 degrees. That puts the camera pointing at the same point that the CSS satellite entered the earth's shadow.

That's really interesting. I had not considered the Earth's shadow being the cause of the "disappearance" because the cloud Travis is pretending isn't there is right there at the exact same spot. I guess it could just a coincidence though.

The "amorphous" appearance does seem to be explained by the object moving behind thin cloud cover as it progresses to its point of "disappearance."

8:05 PM would put it right after the end of astronomical twilight at which point the historical weather reports show there was passing cloud cover.

https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/@5775499/historic?month=10&year=2021

https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/@5775499?month=10&year=2021

I had a feeling the 9:31 PM time given for the pass over was complete nonsense given the other misrepresentations in this episode. The first rocket, the one that exploded, was clearly launched earlier in the evening than suggested because the "laser space cannons" aren't even turned on during the attempted launch.

 

[FatPhil]

Just busking the numbers: if a starlink ...

That calculation was dependent on starlink's specific flaring behaviour, not a more typical LEO object, so does not apply here.
If the thing's capable of flaring nearly overhead, it can have an instantaneous angular speed multiplier not of 2.5x, but of (R_E+VLEO)/VLEO = (6400+400)/400 = 17x.
"Too fast" does not apply. Have these aerial phenomena experts never seen an iridium flare dart across the sky (which, being in a higher orbit, would have "only" a 9x multipler)?

 

[jimmyslippin]

A bit of data that may be useful in determining the speed of the object.

Frame position taken from downloaded video of the entire episode which has a framerate of 23.976 fps.

Angle 1 -
Total frames = 103
Duration = 4.29 seconds

Angle 2 -
Total frames = 136
Duration = 5.67 seconds

 

[jimmyslippin]

Something else I noticed. There appears to be a second satellite captured on video.

You can see it pulsing in the video.

Looking at in-the-sky.org there does appear to be a satellite with a very similar trajectory at the same time the CSS passes by - GLOBALSTAR M030.

The chart for the full pass.

 

[flarkey]

Something else I noticed. There appears to be a second satellite captured on video.

Looking at in-the-sky.org there does appear to be a satellite with a very similar trajectory at the same time the CSS passes by - GLOBALSTAR M030.

Wow, nice find. Here they are together in the planetarium view:

 

[Mick West]

@jimmyslippin suggested this might be a good candidate for Sitrec.

One thing I've not yet done in Sitrec is add support for regular illumination of satellites - i.e. large things like Space Stations that are bright simply because they are in sunlight (and then vanishing when they go into the Earth's shadow).

I'd need

1. A tle file from that approximate date, with the suspect satellites
2. A continuous video clip (or clips) showing the lights moving, with suspect date/time of the start of the clip.

With that in place we should be able to verify the ID, and refine the date/time

This all will eventually be able to be done without writing code, in the custom sitch.

 

[flarkey]

@travis

@jimmyslippin suggested this might be a good candidate for Sitrec.

One thing I've not yet done in Sitrec is add support for regular illumination of satellites - i.e. large things like Space Stations that are bright simply because they are in sunlight (and then vanishing when they go into the Earth's shadow).

I'd need

1. A tle file from that approximate date, with the suspect satellites
2. A continuous video clip (or clips) showing the lights moving, with suspect date/time of the start of the clip.

With that in place we should be able to verify the ID, and refine the date/time

This all will eventually be able to be done without writing code, in the custom sitch.

TLE attached.

Source: https://www.space-track.org/basicsp...RAD_CAT_ID,EPOCH/format/3le/OBJECT_NAME/CSS~~

 

[jdog]

Also there's a part in the video where the Pan and Tilt (elevation) angles for the camera are shown

View attachment 68587

Pan (bearing) 346.8 degrees, and Tilt (Elevation) 83 degrees. That puts the camera pointing at the same point that the CSS satellite entered the earth's shadow.

View attachment 68600

To me, this raises the question of whether the Skinwalker Ranch crew is failing to identify something they've recorded by chance -- or whether they recorded something they knew was going to happen.

 

[jimmyslippin]

@Mick West

I've attached the 3 clips of static camera shots showing the movement of the object. There is a fourth clip attached which is a longer version of clip 3, which has some camera movement and rotation and also shows the object disappearing.

Date: 24/10/2021
Clip 1 ~20:05 (MDT -6)
Clip 2 ~20:05 (about 5 or so seconds after the end of Clip 1)
Clip 3 ~20:05 (about 20 or so seconds after the end of Clip 2)

Also note there is a second object moving that also appears to be a satellite. A check of satellite data for that time suggests it may be GLOBALSTAR M030. It is visible in clips 2 and 3, but not clip 1 where I suspect it is behind cloud cover.

@flarkey
Could you grab the TLE for GLOBALSTAR M030 please?

 

[flarkey]

TLE attached (for all Globalstars)

 

[Mick West]

I got the basics working (some fiddly bugs to do with the spaces in the TLE and using just one satellite), no video, not had time to sync it, and off to dinner. But if you pump the star and sat brightness and turn on the lookView star names, you can find Deneb, and see where it fades out.

More later.
https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?sitch=swrcss

 

[jimmyslippin]

I'm not sure that we can lock in the Earth's shadow as being the cause of the object's disappearance as seen on this show. I am leaning toward cloud cover being the more likely explanation.

First off, there's a cloud right there at the exact location the object disappears. I use LG C2 OLEDs in HDR mode as my main television (55") and my PC monitor (42"). The cloud is *very* obvious to me in some of the footage due to brightness and high dynamic range. At times they seem to have darkened the video to hide the cloud, but there are moments where it's clearly right there.

Adjust your brightness and contrast if you're not seeing it, but it's definitely right there. Flarkey's image shows the path of the object leading directly into it.

I'm going to pull out my camera and telescope and see if I can get some footage of satellites disappearing into the Earth's shadow for comparison, but in the meantime I found this footage on Youtube. It's not the best quality, but to me it seems to show the reflecting light gradually decreasing in magnitude while retaining its general shape.

The video has been sped up, so set playback speed to 0.5x.



Compare that to what is seen on the show.

To me it looks like the object first starts to move through a thin layer of cloud which slightly obscures the reflecting light but still retains its general size and shape. But then when it moves behind thicker cloud the shape of the reflecting light changes to the point where it's almost crescent-like just before it disappears.

I'm happy with the ID of CSS and I'm convinced it was going to "disappear" at that general location anyway, but I'm just not fully convinced that the cloud didn't get in the way first.

Anyone else want to chime in on this?

 

[Eburacum]

All the lights in that image are crescent shaped, or lop-sided circles with a darkish centre.. This is because they are all slightly out of focus. The crescent shape of the fading object is only due to a reduction in apparent brilliance.

When I've seen satellites enter the shadow of the earth they fade out gradually, and there is a slight reddening if they are bright enough to show colour. Even the ISS is too small to show any details or shape with the naked eye.

 

[flarkey]

View attachment 68728

To me it looks like the object first starts to move through a thin layer of cloud which slightly obscures the reflecting light but still retains its general size and shape. But then when it moves behind thicker cloud the shape of the reflecting light changes to the point where it's almost crescent-like just before it disappears.

I'm happy with the ID of CSS and I'm convinced it was going to "disappear" at that general location anyway, but I'm just not fully convinced that the cloud didn't get in the way first.

Anyone else want to chime in on this?

Yeah, to be honest I do think that the object disappears very quickly, almost too quickly for it to be going into the earth shadow compared to the other satellites I've seen do this, but when I found the CSS path and saw that it was entering the earth's shadow at that point I was happy to put that speed downtown the effects of exposure and limitations in video contrast. If we have evidence that its entering cloud then I'm not going to argue, it is equally possible. What will settle it is an accurate recreation in sitrec and synchronisation to the video.

 

[jimmyslippin]

All the lights in that image are crescent shaped, or lop-sided circles with a darkish centre.. This is because they are all slightly out of focus. The crescent shape of the fading object is only due to a reduction in apparent brilliance.

I understand the focus issue, but watch the video in full screen. The object is a fairly solid circle of light compared to the out of focus stars.

 

[jimmyslippin]

Yeah, to be honest I do think that the object disappears very quickly, almost too quickly for it to be going into the earth shadow compared to the other satellites I've seen do this, but when I found the CSS path and saw that it was entering the earth's shadow at that point I was happy to put that speed downtown the effects of exposure and limitations in video contrast. If we have evidence that its entering cloud then I'm not going to argue, it is equally possible. What will settle it is an accurate recreation in sitrec and synchronisation to the video.

I had a look on in-the-sky.org for some upcoming satellite passes that enter the Earth's shadow around 70°-90° as seen from my location and there are a few coming up in the next week with a reasonably high level of magnitude that I could, weather permitting, video for comparison purposes. I should be able to get some pretty good video using my EQ8-R Pro equatorial mount but I've never used it to track a satellite before, so I'll get to learn something new.

 

[JMartJr]

Not sure whether the light being out of focus could possibly be causing this, but to my eye, playing back the disappearing moment at slow speed it look like a consistent obstruction blocks the light as the light passes behind it, it LOOKS LIKE I am seeing "structure," that is, some physical thing with a shape, between the camera and the light. Clouds could do that, but to my eye it looks almost more like tree bits. Not sure if THAT is possible, assuming they are reporting honestly on what they saw and are not totally making up a story*, but it's what it looks most like to me.

Of course, if that's an artifact of the focus issue, this can be disregarded.

Moment of disappearance I was looking at is here:
Source: https://youtu.be/ebEm4nqbkuM?t=484


(*They're a TV show entertaining people for ratings, there is very little reason why a "reality show" would stick with reality if it was not interesting enough to keep the ratings up. So I don't really trust that anything they show is not fictional... but it can be discussed on the basis of "If it happens to be real, what might have caused it?")

 

[Eburacum]

Assuming this object is the CSS, it is half the length of the ISS, so must be only six or seven arcminutes long at most. This is far too small to show any diameter, or any details at all on a video clip of this magnification. Any details you can see are entirely an artifact of the camera.

First off, there's a cloud right there at the exact location the object disappears. I use LG C2 OLEDs in HDR mode as my main television (55") and my PC monitor (42"). The cloud is *very* obvious to me in some of the footage due to brightness and high dynamic range. At times they seem to have darkened the video to hide the cloud, but there are moments where it's clearly right there.
Adjust your brightness and contrast if you're not seeing it, but it's definitely right there. Flarkey's image shows the path of the object leading directly into it.

I've adjusted my brightness and contrast so that the 'cloud' is visible on my monitor too, and yes, I can see it.
I know what it is, but it is not what you think.

Here's a direct comparison between the video shot, and the Celestia star display app. That 'cloud' is a real cloud, but it is 400 light years away; it is the section of the Milky Way star cloud known as the Cygnus Loop.

The CSS is only 400km away, so I doubt it disappeared into that cloud.

 

[Eburacum]

Here's a view from WikiSky, showing the Cygnus Loop in a bit more detail
.

 

[Eburacum]

To me, this raises the question of whether the Skinwalker Ranch crew is failing to identify something they've recorded by chance -- or whether they recorded something they knew was going to happen.

Absolutely. This telescope was pointed directly towards the location where a large (56 metre!) satellite entered the Earth's shadow. The rockets were directed towards the same location. A coincidence seems unlikely.

 

[Mick West]

Some improvements
https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?sitch=swrcss

Now if you double-click on the lower right view (the "Look View") it will expand it to the above full-screen. There's a new "Satellite Arrows" option, which I'll change the color of. But here I've overlaid two shots with the above SitRec:

It's certainly going in the right direction, but the position seems a bit off, as it's right next to Deneb, but in the videos is few more degrees to the right.

Here's the position of Deneb

 

[jimmyslippin]

I've adjusted my brightness and contrast so that the 'cloud' is visible on my monitor too, and yes, I can see it.
I know what it is, but it is not what you think.

Here's a direct comparison between the video shot, and the Celestia star display app. That 'cloud' is a real cloud, but it is 400 light years away; it is the section of the Milky Way star cloud known as the Cygnus Loop.

The CSS is only 400km away, so I doubt it disappeared into that cloud.

Hard disagree with this analysis.

There are no stars visible in the upper right quadrant where the cloud is, and if you alternate between the two images attached you can see the cloud is moving.

 

[Mendel]

There are no stars visible in the upper right quadrant where the cloud is, and if you alternate between the two images attached you can see the cloud is moving.

I can't say I can discern that on my display, but here's an in-place comparison (move the slider):
[compare]

[/compare]

 

[Mendel]

It's certainly going in the right direction, but the position seems a bit off, as it's right next to Deneb, but in the videos is few more degrees to the right.

10 miles offet in the camera position creates ~2⁰ offset in the location of the CSS if it is directly overhead. How certain are you of the camera position?

 

[MonkeeSage]

It's certainly going in the right direction, but the position seems a bit off, as it's right next to Deneb, but in the videos is few more degrees to the right.

Apparently the CSS had a close pass with a Starlink sat a few days earlier on 21 October 2021 and had to alter it's course. They apparently sent a note the UN about it.

Article:

On 21 October 2021, the Starlink-2305 satellite had a subsequent close encounter with the China Space Station. As the satellite was continuously manoeuvring, the manoeuvre strategy was unknown and orbital errors were hard to be assessed, there was thus a collision risk between the Starlink-2305 satellite and the China Space Station. To ensure the safety and lives of in-orbit astronauts, the China Space Station performed an evasive manoeuvre again on the same day to avoid a potential collision between the two spacecraft.

Source: https://www.unoosa.org/res/oosadoc/data/documents/2021/aac_105/aac_1051262_0_html/AAC105_1262E.pdf

Would this be included in the TLE data?

Jonathan McDowell only analyzes it in terms of apogee/perigee, not sure if there was any other direction involved to the avoidance maneuver.

Article:

On Oct 21 the then-recently-launched Starlink-2305 satellite was orbit raising through the altitude of the CSS and was predicted to pass within 1 km of the Chinese station at about 2200 UTC. The CSS made an orbit adjustment at about 0316 UTC to avoid the encounter. In this case Starlink-2305 does not appear to have made any avoidance burns.

Source: https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4338/1

I don't think only changing altitude alone alter its relative position from our view/in sitrec?

 

[jimmyslippin]

I can't say I can discern that on my display, but here's an in-place comparison (move the slider):

It's too hard to see with the smaller image size. The originals are 1920x1080. If you download them and flick back and forth between the two images using the built-in Microsoft Photos app the cloud movement becomes apparent.

EDIT: Sorry, I should have done this the first time.

Both images edited (contrast -100, exposure +5.00) to increase cloud visibility and added to an animated GIF.

EDIT: Strange, when I upload the GIF it changes to a static image. I will try the slider.

[compare]

[/compare]

The slider tool slightly offsets the second image for some reason.

 

[jimmyslippin]

Contrast and brightness adjusted image of one of the very last frames before the barely visible object (the black arrow is pointing at it) completely disappears from view.

Here's an image from right before the 90° counter-clockwise camera rotation and zoom in.

EDIT: Probably the best evidence we have of cloud cover is the astrometry star search results. Some of those stars in the Lacerta and Cepheus constellations are brighter than the ones with colored annotations, and they aren't visible.

 

[Eburacum]

That looks convincing enough. You may be right.
However the CSS would have disappeared anyway, because of the Earth's shadow; and it seems to disappear just outside the cloud, rather than when it enters the cloud, so that seems to be a coincidence.

 

[flarkey]

Just trying to geolocate the excat location of the lasers... from these two sections of drone footage.....

... I think they are here... in the middle of the Skinwalker Ranch Triangle (sounds about right!).

Which Google Maps gives the co-ords as 40.256992652439244, -109.89312718377975.

This is 470m away from the main ranch and the coords of the NOTAM, so it shouldn't have a significant effect on the sitrec model, but I guess we should try to be as accurate as possible.

 

[Eburacum]

The course and timing of the pass is so accurate that it must be the Chinese Space Station. It looks like it is a few kilometres away from the published path, but exactly parallel to it - this may be the result of the course adjustment, to avoid the Starlink satellite.

Honestly, those Starlinks are a menace - I expect there will be trouble of some kind in due course.

 

[Mick West]

Which Google Maps gives the co-ords as 40.256992652439244, -109.89312718377975.

This is 470m away from the main ranch and the coords of the NOTAM, so it shouldn't have a significant effect on the sitrec model, but I guess we should try to be as accurate as possible.

That looks accurate, as they launch the rocket from the middle of the triangle.

Looks like they put the lasers next to the road, i.e. outlining the triangle. Using that 8' ladder as reference, I estimate the distance between the back two (which the camera is roughly perpendicular to) is 15.4 ladders, or 124 feet, about 38 meters.

Or about the inner edge of the triangle:

The camera is somewhere East of that point.

So I added the lasers and moved the camera over.

https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?sitch=swrcss