I attempted with an 18 inch Newtonian, 40mm eyepiece yielding a 1 degree field at 50x. Thin cirrus rolled in about T minus 10 minutes, so contrast was not perfect. I was hoping for a clean look down to 12th magnitude given the object's motion. In the minute around the prediction, 10th magnitude stars were still obvious with direct vision around target star 5.9 magnitude HIP 47401 at 9h39.5m 67d16.3m J2000. I rehearsed the field stars as far as 22 and 27 UMaj, and did a slow sweep estimated to match the orbit, and it's not likely I missed a 10th magnitude object from T minus 5 minutes, to T plus 1 minute. I'll have to try it at a better phase angle, and I'm also dancing at a bit near the shadow exit with this pass. I have seen TiPS many times, so I'd be thrilled to see the new tether. Happy Hunting, Dan -----Original Message----- From: mmccants@io.com To: SeeSat-L@satobs.org Sent: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 23:21:30 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: MAST : No Show Dan Laszlo posted: >If the tether is deployed, is it likely the drag has caused a lower >orbit and even earlier arrival than minus 4 minutes? The tles from Space-Track have a fixed value for the BStar term and the drag term. Judging from the very small change in mean motion over the last few days, that drag value (which is very small) should be even smaller. A prediction from a tle that is one week old differs from a prediction by the current tle by only 2 seconds. The perigee is pretty high (about 650 Km) - so even if the tether is deployed, I think the drag will not increase to be greater than the value on the current tles. Mike McCants ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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