Hello everyone. 89- 41 A 00-04-01 03:12:05.0 JDG 598.0 0.3 52 11.50 +1.5->inv 89- 41 A 00-04-02 03:11:55.4 JDG 357.3 0.3 31 11.53 +3.5->inv 93- 61 A 00-04-01 02:49:01.8 JDG 140.7 0.5 7 20.1 +4.0->inv 99- 39 B 00-04-02 04:04:45.0 JDG 68.1 0.3 27 2.52 +4.0->inv Spot 3 produced bright flashes at 01:06:26.75 and 01:06:47.12 UTC, 1 April on the evening's first pass. The second pass (02:48 UTC, 1 April) produced more regular flashes at 20 second intervals. Superbird A was true to Rob Marson's predictions. Peak flashing (phase shift) was apparent at about 03:06 UT, 1 April and 03:08, 2 April. The 1 April (UTC) flashes were particularly bright. Some were clearly visible at 1x - about +1.5 mag. One double flash was observed on the 1 April (UTC) obs. Two similar Iridium flares were observed. Iridium 18 flared to a predicted +1 mag at 01:26:30 UTC, 1 April and Iridium 39 flared to a predicted +1 mag at 01:19:57 UTC, 2 April. Both flare were at 0az, 15 el. TiPS was 6 seconds early (01:54:26UTC, 1 April) and 8 seconds early (00:34:44 UTC. 2 April) using the following elset. TiPS 2.5 0.0 0.0 6.3 d 1 00006U 00000C 00079.65277778 0.00001787 00000 0 20529-2 0 00000 2 00006 63.4243 143.2686 0130396 359.8269 142.8215 13.65750644148970 TiPS has always been of interest for me. In my moderately light polluted location I am usually pretty happy just to detect TiPS. Last evening was my first obs with the 6" Dob. This evening's obs was extraordinary. When I acquired TiPS with my 6" Dob about 2 deg above gamma Leo (118az, 59el) I was able to observe the tether as well as the other objects (Ralph and Norton) from 00:44:43 until 00:47:00, 2 April. At times each end would get bright (+6 mag?). During the entire period of observation the 4 km tether was plainly visible ~0.25 deg of arc. Quite the sight. Cheers Don Gardner 39.1796 N, 76.8419 W, 34m ASL Homepage: http://hometown.aol.com/mir16609/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Apr 01 2000 - 22:44:12 PST