A couple of nights ago, my first chance to observe in over a week, we accidentally saw what Mike later identified as Molniya 3-27 (16393, 85-117A) flashing very nicely at a range of about 16,000 km (and increasing). I kept checking on it and found it was very easy to find with 10x50s for about 30 minutes; after that I was distracted by other things. The flash period was about 10.85 seconds. It was just east of the south end of Sagitta at first and was slowly going pretty much horizontally right-to-left. Mike recovered 90002, an unknown drifting flashing geosynch. Its flash period was about 16.65, with double flashes and a fainter secondary at about half-period. The brightest maxima were about +7.5. Mike's records indicate that its flash period is speeding up. I think this is the one discovered by Rick Baldridge in October 1998 and was given the number 98003 back then: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Oct-1998/0184.html http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Oct-1998/0193.html Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from SeeSat-L, send a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@satobs.org List archived at http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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