Edward S Light (light@argoscomp.com) wrote: > This morning, despite some scattered fog and haze, we saw the ISS > and the new Progress M1-3 supply ship ... Here, in spite of our typical low, fast-moving broken clouds and some dawning light, I was able to observe Mir (11:02), ISS (11:12-13), and Progress (11:20-21). The clouds hindered Mir the most, partly due to it traveling in the same direction as they. All three passes were very good, very bright ones. I was quite surprised at the brightness of the Progress -- seemingly not a lot fainter than ISS itself. I didn't know they could be that bright. Iridium 920 (24871, 97-34C) did a great pass here last night. If you get a southbound evening pass going near the zenith and like to watch a lot of rapid flashes that get brighter and fainter and brighter and fainter, have a look! (I wonder how much the quality of light show it puts on depends on the observer's latitude...?) Viewed using magnification, it's obviously flashing at least twice per second. In a way it's kind of like EGP/Ajisai, because it flashes a few times regularly, goes into a brief chaotic flashing episode, and then resumes the regular flashes. Gorizont 14 (17969, 87-40A) was again last night very easy. On this time around at least, it has certainly been one of the easiest flashing near-geosynchs to find that I've looked for with my handheld binoculars: find the right spot in the sky to within a couple of degrees, watch while counting to 90, and sometime during the count -- flash! Then, more than an hour after first sighting it, after I got home from the observing site, I located it easily again from the very light-polluted parking lot outside of my apartment. It drifts several degrees to the west from night to night. Clouds and probably rain here tonight. 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://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Aug 08 2000 - 17:16:20 PDT