> > The reason of seeing a rocket body steady when you are sure that it is > tumbling is that you are observing the rocket right on the rotation axis. > Another reason is if the Sun happens to be close to the rotation axis. In this case you would probably 'never' see sharp flashes, and sharp minima only if you happen to see it 'end-on' during part of the track. In the case Tristan mentioned, you would - like with your obs - see flashes during part of the track, and also on different days, when the satellite does not pass the same area where it was steady. I guess you saw it below 40 deg. E at 20:22 UTC on Aug.10, 21:03 S-Z-N on Aug.11, and 40 deg. WSW on Aug.12. This means the axis could be pointing from Aquila/Cygnus towards Hydra, which is quite close to the Sun, so the flash amplitude may be smaller than normal. -- b_gimle@algonet.se (home) http://www.algonet.se/~b_gimle -- -- COSPAR 5919, MALMA, 59.2576 N, 18.6172 E, 23 m -- -- COSPAR 5918, HAMMARBY, 59.2985 N, 18.1045 E, 44 m -- -- SeeSat-L / Visual Satellite Observer Home Page found at -- -- http://www2.satellite.eu.org/satintro.html -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 : Mon Aug 14 2000 - 02:53:32 PDT