96- 29B (NOSS 2-3 Rk) correction and new obs.

Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Mon, 22 Dec 1997 02:51:13 -0600

About 5 weeks ago I posted a flash report on 96-29B (NOSS 2-3 Rk,
#23907) with the wrong total elapsed time and therefore period 
(due to leaving a zero out of my notation -- I had written ":55.3").  

Russell Eberst pointed out to me that my total was probably 0:55.3 
rather than the 1:55.3 (115.3 seconds) that I had mistakenly 
concluded (because I had thought its period was about seven seconds).  
So anyway, the erroneous report was:

>96- 29 B 97-11-16 11:57      EdC 115.3 0.5  17  6.78  mag 1.5->2.5?

The corrected report is:

96- 29 B 97-11-16 11:57      EC   55.3 0.5  17  3.25  mag 1.5->2.5?

For those who don't read flash reports (like I didn't for many 
months), the period I measured was 3.25 seconds.

Now here's a NEW observation, from a few hours ago (from Bee Cave
Research Center Austin location):

96- 29 B 97-12-22 00:34      EC   56.4 0.3  15  3.76  fAfA mag +1

There's still a problem, maybe, because of the differences in the
periods (3.25 versus 3.76).  Or maybe that's normal slowdown?  
Anyway, a few hours ago I clearly observed in binoculars for a few 
of the cycles that it had a quick but bright secondary flash before 
the primary maximum, but I was not able to time those due to no 
split memories on my cheap old stopwatch.  Perhaps that secondary 
has something to do with varying timings?

Now another correction that Russell pointed out to me.  Under the
subject "Re: Cosmos 2347; TRMM/ETS-7 objects" on Dec. 18 I wrote:

>Struck again by the dreaded typo!  I typed:
>
>>Cosmos 2347 (#23705, 97-97A) was steady and bright ...
>               ^^^^^
>Should have entered #25088!  

Also, of course it was NOT 97-97A.  (It appears that one will never
be launched.)  It was #25088, 97-79A, Cosmos 2347.  

Sunday evening I got to go to BCRC with Mike for the first time in
weeks and got to see 97-68B again in his telescope (the other time
was the night it was launched).  It's a Centaur flashing about once 
per second.  Mike was taking positions on it.

We tried to see the newest Iridiums but did not see them.

Ed Cannon
ecannon@mail.utexas.edu