97-52C and a couple of other things

Ed Cannon (edcannonutaustin@netscape.net)
30 Aug 99 03:24:41 CDT

Early on 30 August UTC I observed 97-52C (24955, Cosmos 2346 Rk, an "SL-8") to
be tumbling with a period of just under 20 seconds.  The maxima were faintly
visible at one-power from the nearby museum grounds (30.3068N, 97.7267W,
150m), so they must have been at least +3.5. 

97- 52 C 99-08-30 03:02:21   EC   78.6 0.5   4 19.6   mag +3.5->inv

At roughly 2:06:30 to 2:07:00 UTC there were three one-power objects in view,
GRO (21225, 91-27B), Meteor 1-8 Rk (05143, 71-31B), and a +2.5 UNID traveling
from SW towards N which later checking seems to identify as 21423, 91-42B,
Cosmos 2151 Rk -- about 3 magnitudes brighter than predictions.  It was easy
one-power for 30 to 60 seconds.  I didn't come up with any other candidate for
this bright object.

I appreciate Mike McCants mentioning a couple of my obs. from Saturday night,
when I accidentally zeroed the times on my stopwatch.  Also, watching Gorizont
17 was about as easy at it gets for a geosynch object -- just little to the
lower right of the second red light from the top of the radio tower, and there
it was, very easy to find in binocs.  I believe without the moonlight the
primary maxima would have been one-power.  It wasn't so easy Sunday evening,
and I didn't find it from my more light-polluted location in town.

(Sure wish I didn't have to use Netscape Webmail to send this....)

Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA


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