Re: New Geosync flasher discovered by Ed Cannon

Mike McCants (mikem@freeside.fc.net)
Thu, 2 Apr 1998 07:12:46 -0600 (CST)

On Tuesday evening, Ed Cannon and I watched the new
geosync flasher for about an hour and a half.  After it
stopped flashing about 4:30UT on April 1, 1998, it was visible
in the Austin Astronomical Society 12 1/2 inch telescope
varying between magnitude 13.5 and 14.5 at about 200x.

Last night I observed it with my 8 inch.  A revised elset is:

Unknown       
1 98001U          98 92.03965033  .00000000  00000-0  00000+0 0    07
2 98001   3.8800  59.9469 0001000  78.1064 281.8936  1.00285000    01

It definitely is slightly lower than geosynchronous height
and moving very slowly higher in my southwestern sky as it drifts
slowly eastward.

I believe that it flashes from about 3:45UT until about 4:30UT
as seen from Austin, Tx.  Sometimes the flashes are to 6th magnitude,
sometimes to only about 8th magnitude.

Mike McCants
Austin, Tx