observations with 20 cm SCT magnification 150x, FOV 0.44 deg U991031: this geosat is drifting to the West and was at the end of my visibility period for it. I found it low in the SW only 11 deg above the horizont. It was very faint (about mag 11.5) and mostly steady. Sometimes it was invisible for several seconds, sometimes it seemed flashing with a small amplitude, but was impossible to measure. (Mike McCants has found a flash period of 1.006 seconds 1999 Nov 28.) When I searched for U991031 the next night, I found a faint one second flasher close to the expected time and position and followed it for 13 minutes until I lost it after taking notes. Maxima were of unequal magnitude, brightest max about mag 10.5, some maxima missing, FP about 1.2 seconds. I had taken four points, but could not fit them to the orbit of U991031. I checked GEO.TLE from OIG and found INTELSAT 4A-F3 (1978-002A, 10557) matching the observations (not in PPAS, probably a new flasher). Later that night I found U991031 again. Also found DSP 16 (91-080B, 21805). SATOBS IntlId SiteYYMMDDHHMMSSss Sss TCHHMMmm DDddd DdddE MMm 9930401500500082521012165 030 13171211 -15795 00085 9930401500500082521022423 030 13171323 -15806 00085 115 9930401500500082521152842 030 13172725 -15897 00035 9930401500500082521285164 030 13174156 -15959 00065 9930401500500082521301201 100 13174295 -15963 00055 9108002500500082522240920 030 13211243 -11844 00105 117 9108002500500082522282039 030 13211666 -11874 00055 9108002500500082522351180 030 13212354 -11929 00035 112 9108002500500082522540943 030 13214261 -12051 00045 7800201500500082621062042 030 13171218 -15819 00035 7800201500500082621085397 030 13171471 -15907 00035 7800201500500082621180782 030 13172395 -16204 00025 7800201500500082621190422 030 13172488 -16226 00025 9930401500500082623340490 030 13194471 -15117 00085 9930401500500082623343421 020 13194522 -15109 00025 9930401500500082623550430 020 13200591 -14746 00025 115 format description: http://home.t-online.de/home/R.Kracht/Rgoobs.txt elsets (SGP4) from observations U991031 4.5 1 99304U 99304A 00239.00000000 0.00000000 00000-0 +00000+0 0 00 2 99304 8.0361 5.8876 0445783 206.8776 89.6283 0.99566663 02 DSP 16 (USA 75) 5.0 1 21805U 91080B 00239.00000000 .00000000 00000-0 00000+0 0 02 2 21805 4.3192 72.2031 0004253 326.8915 303.3469 1.00274000 02 Rainer Kracht Elmshorn, Germany Station 5005, 53.7695N 9.6626E 9m r.kracht@sh-home.de ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 : Sun Aug 27 2000 - 11:40:51 PDT