Superbird A (89-041A, 20040) continues to provide a series of +5->inv flashes quite a while after the main flash episode. Last night (April 26 UTC) I was able to watch many flashes (22.8-second interval) from 3:43:25 to 3:58:15, and I do not know when they began or ended. Chinasat 5 (84-049A, 14985) did some +4 flashes last night, but they were every other flash, thus about 4:51 between them. I saw most of the in-between flashes also. We saw a few flashes the previous evening also. Mike McCants put his telescope on TiPS (96-029F, 23937) the last two nights, and with his newer eyepiece it's quite a view! Wednesday UTC as I watched it for two or three minutes, it displayed a very interesting alternation between flashes of "Ralph" and "Norton" -- which must be multi-faceted objects considering the way they were flashing. Thursday UTC I saw a Sirius-class (-1.5) flare low in the NNW, and Shi Jian 5 (99-025B, 25731) seems to be a very good match. STS 100+ISS reached about +2 on a pass low in the west to SW. The previous evening Mike put his scope on it, and I was able to see two or three separate bright spots, but not much more. I need more practice! I believe that he has told me that with that eyepiece it's about 80-power. Intelsat 512 (85-087A, 16101) is back over the USA again, and if anyone sees it flashing, please post a report! The period should be about 40 seconds, plus or minus. Thanks. Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 : Thu Apr 26 2001 - 02:33:37 PDT