Paul Sventek comments

Two packs of beef for only 184 yen? Is that price really correct? Seems very inexpensive.

What do the different colors on the children's hats signify? Year in school maybe?

There are no stars in the photo for a couple of reasons:

1) The Sun is very, very, bright. Thus the image exposure time is very, very, short. Too short to record stars.

2) The little LEV that took the image necessarily must have a very small lens. Very small lenses (plus short exposure times) aren't conducive to imaging stars.

I live in Houston and had the fortunate occasion once to ask an astronaut if stars were visible from earth orbit when they were on the sun side of the earth. He said no. Too much light reflecting off earth. Your eye pupils adjust to the bright light making stars mostly invisible.

Update from Houston... I've received an email from someone far more knowledgeable in satellite launching that seeing four objects is consistent with the release of the XRISM satellite. One object is XRISM and the other three are pieces of rocket fairing which drift and spin causing the flashes that were visible. Now where the H2A upper rocket body and SLIM are is another question.

From Houston, Texas, I observed (before dawn 8 Sept) what I am assuming were some of the objects from this launch (calculated from satellite orbital elements available from satellite observing websites). I am assuming the orbital elements are from this launch because the orbit is correct for something launched directly eastward from Tanegashima (as what actually did happen) and the preliminary names given to these objects fit usual satellite naming conventions for new launches). I saw FOUR objects in a line several degrees long. Two of them were tumbling. I sure wish this observation could get to JAXA for a possible explanation because if any object is tumbling at all, it should be just one (the upper rocket body). Plus, if anything, I would expect only three objects to be visible, XRISM, SLIM, and the rocket body. If something else is tumbling, something is likely wrong. I have more chances to see other passes in the coming days.

That neko in the photo doesn't look all too happy; they could test the equipment on it.

Still think it probably was this rocket body:

https://aerospace.org/reentries/54231

Meteors usually move faster that the object(s) in that video.

With the use of this satellite decay prediction website, we might be able to identify what this objects was.

https://aerospace.org/reentries

Can anyone give an idea if the direction this object was moving? Date, time, better location of where it was observed?

Looks much like the decay of a satellite or some other orbital debris.

Xavier,

Thanks for the youtube link.

I wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of the attorney on the right in the photo introducing the article.