I observed a near zenith transit by the new NRO object and its Titan
rocket above my home in Edinburgh. The track was close to those
predicted by Ted's elsets for the Lacrosse Type 1 and 2 orbits.
My single best position for 01h 11m 49.34s UTC on 2005 Apr 30 is
RA 18h 39m 40.6s Dec +52d 10m 10s
with a time uncertainty of 0.1 sec and position uncertainty of 4 arcmin.
At that point in the transit, as they descended in the E, the two
objects were roughly in line with one (the leader) about 3 arcmin ahead
of the other. The position is for the trailing object which was normally
the brighter of the two. They were about mag 3 (leader) and 1.5
(trailer) at this point, but they had been closer to 1.5 and 1
respectively as they passed overhead, with (at least) one of them
varying so that at times they were almost equal. While overhead the
separation was about 10 arscec. I also suspected that they were embedded
in a haze during the transit, but that might have been wishful thinking.
Alan
--
Alan Pickup / COSPAR 2707: 55.8968N 3.1989W +208m (WGS84 datum)
Edinburgh / SatEvo Home Page: http://www.wingar.demon.co.uk/satevo/
Scotland / Decay Watch: http://www.wingar.demon.co.uk/satevo/dkwatch/
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