> however last night 27/08/00 I was very lucky in seeing the Spot 3 satellite > (22823/93061A) perform a dazzling display. .. > travelling SE to NNW mag. 2 - 3. A couple of seconds > later it disappeared from view only to suddenly flash in the neg. mag. > possibly 2 - 3, I then disappeared for a few seconds reappear with a few > mag 2 - 3 flashes the finally it was gone. > Question has this satellite been known to perform like this before or have I It has been known for some time - if I remember correctly at least a year. I have some observations of negative magnitude flashes from March to June, and two of my own reported Aug.25+26, but I NEED a few more recent positions (or times to the nearest second) to compute the spin axis and surface orientation and make predictions. The period is about 21 seconds, but you will (hopefully) not find two adjacent flashes to negative magnitude, but they can reappear a few times on a pass, if there are multiple surfaces, or the satellite passes the cone of flash directions twice. -- 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 : Tue Aug 29 2000 - 23:00:32 PDT