On Apr 10 I observed an object, definitely the same as the one Apr 08 in a KH 9-18-like orbit. This time, the voice recorder lasted throughout the observation and reduction, but I must have bumped the stopwatch against the telescope, so the Mode switch got depressed! I was partly saved by the final fix - it appulsed a bright star, so I stopped following it to identify the star, and a few seconds later another object appulsed the same star (which turned out to be delta UMi). The other satellite was 76077BN, predicted to pass the same star at 20:22:12.75 by all five recent elsets 97.22-101.34 So, I estimated the KH 9-18 (?) pass time as 20:22:08+-05, and all other obs relative to this one according to comments on the recording. 14139 83 060C 5919 E 20040408200539440 17 25 1339721+503412 99 S 14139 83 060C 5919 E 20040408200545720 17 25 1342332+520744 99 S 14139 83 060C 5919 E 20040410202126000 58 25 1250675+601842 19 S 14139 83 060C 5919 E 20040410202130000 58 25 1251318+612304 19 S 14139 83 060C 5919 E 20040410202142000 17 25 1254527+652733 19 S 14139 83 060C 5919 E 20040410202144000 58 25 1255497+660153 19 S 14139 83 060C 5919 E 20040410202146000 58 25 1255912+663864 19 S 14139 83 060C 5919 E 20040410202207000 58 25 1309209+725490 28 S 14139 83 060C 5919 E 20040410202308000 58 25 1732154+863634 18 S Using this elset, with MM derived from Mike's (based on my 02-20/03-12 obs?) KH 9-18 Vec2TLE 1 14139U 83060C 04101.83529389 .00000050 00000-0 18182-3 0 21 2 14139 96.6435 179.6717 0002577 206.4080 153.6901 12.93712728 3776 I find reasonably likely star IDs for my first two obs on Apr 08, but not the third, at 6 sec early. The Mar.12 obs should be disregarded since timing was only inferred from track position (and it was tumbling). The Feb.20 obs gives a -123 sec error using this MM, and would require too large correction to be KH 9-18 (if the April obs is) -- COSPAR 5919, MALMA, 59.2576 N, 18.6172 E, 23 m -- -- COSPAR 5918, HAMMARBY, 59.2985 N, 18.1045 E, 44 m -- ----- Original Message ----- ... Then I watched a 1.4 degree FOV around 13h34m +61.0 HP066234 which KH 9-18 should nearly occult. At 20:05:39.44 a satellite passed a star pair in my FOV, which hopefully was above this star, but I can't recognize it. My voice recorder's batteries, replaced last week and only used for about 25 minutes since then, were depleted before the satellite appeared :-( ... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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