Tristan Cools wrote:
> The Optical Calibration Sphere(2000-04B) was predicted with Satspy to have
> a very close pass to the Moon. In fact when I continued to follow it, the
> satellite did have a lunar transit !
>
> I could not see it at the illuminated side of the Moon but became visible
> when it was above the unlit side of the Moon. It went out of transit at
> 21h14m53s UTC(April 9). A very short but intense experience !
>
> I also have the impression that the OCS sphere isn't very steady. Some
> variations are visible on this satellite. Maybe there is still something
> attached to it.
>
Hello
It's good to have another transit observation in the database! Some
weeks ago I adapted my software to calculate transits with sun and moon,
and lunar Iridium flares. I saw 2 transits, but did not succeed to see
lunar flares, mainly due to bad weather (I hope so, at least...).
For the current elsets (DOY 97) and your position Ryckevelde CalSKY
outputs:
+21h15m02.3s OCS 26062U 00004B
Crosses the disk of Moon. Separation:0.05d
Angular diameter: 0.5" spherical,
diameter: 3.6m
Center line: 2.59km, az:101.8d ESE
az: 270.1d W h: 26.2d dist: 1498.8km
mag=5.5m
The sphere was pretty far away and the angular diameter was at its
resolution limits for earthborn observation, hence I'm curious if there
exists (unclassified) CCD-images of such small objects projected against
the sun or the moon.
What puzzles me is the difference in time of about 10 seconds for your
observation: what error interval do you expect for the seconds given?
This night there are 3 other lunar crossings for this site.
Other recent observation reports of transits are welcome!
Greetings,
Arnold Barmettler
www.CalSKY.com (including online calculations of lunar flares,
solar/lunar crossings of Mir, ISS, STS)
--
-------------------------------------- . -------------------------
Arnold Barmettler, Dipl. Ing. ETH + + Remote Sensing Labs RSL
Tel +41 1 635 6525 + . University of Zurich
Fax +41 1 635 6842 * . Winterthurerstrasse 190
barmettler@rsl.geo.unizh.ch * CH-8057 Zurich (Switzerland)
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Apr 10 2000 - 01:34:45 PDT