Last night I was able to help a family who had come out to see the comet, and then also was able to show them ISS, a nice -1 Iridium flare, and a couple of fainter satellites, as well as EGP to one of the kids. Observing site for 2002 April 2 UTC was Mt. Bonnell, a city park in Austin with an excellent western horizon. Saturday and Sunday evenings (2002 March 31 and April 1 UTC) it was the BCRC site. Here are some PPAS flash timings from the last three evenings: 23794, Raduga 33 (between clouds) 96- 10 A 02-03-31 03:17:08 EC 92.5 0.3 3 30.8 +2->inv 19017, Gorizont 15 88- 28 A 02-03-31 03:37:53 EC 461.5 0.4 26 17.75 +7.5->inv 19468, Fengyun 1A Rk (seems to "phase shift" in mid-pass) 88- 80 B 02-03-31 03:24:50 EC 83.6 1.5 7 11.9 secondaries also 88- 80 B 02-04-01 03:23:13 EC 70.3 0.5 6 11.7 12553, NOAA 7 81- 59 A 02-04-01 02:01:18 EC 57.8 0.5 5 11.6 2ndaries & tertiaries 19397, Gorizont 16 88- 71 A 02-04-01 04:41:17 EC 957.7 0.3 10 95.77 +7->inv 16600, BS-2B PKM 86- 16 C 02-04-02 01:47:04 EC 36.1 0.4 8 4.5 +3.5->inv 24838, Iridium 9 97- 30 C 02-04-02 02:51:53 EC 106.4 0.5 11 9.67 +3.5->inv Last night I was able to see the Shenzhou III orbital module easily in twilight; it was about +2.5 I guess as it went through Ursa Major. SPOT 3 (22823, 93-061A) did easy one-power flashes on both passes. Saturday or Sunday evening (local) USA 81 (21949, 92-023A) went straight through the middle of M41. Last night without binoculars it was visible sparkly-flashing for several seconds, south of culmination. Saturday evening, along with Raduga 33, Mike McCants and I also saw between clouds both ISS and a DMSP flare. It cleared later. 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://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Apr 02 2002 - 05:09:27 EST