Two satellites in a hurry
Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Wed, 30 Dec 1998 02:31:30 -0600
Tuesday evening (early 30 Dec. UTC) we had two satellites go
over Central Texas in a big hurry. First was #04583 (70-85A,
Meteor 1-6) with range at culmination of about 291 km (182
miles). It is SatEvo-predicted to decay in just over one
week. Rob Matson wrote that it's tumbling, and I noticed that
also but didn't get any times. By the way, the last two times
I've seen it Meteor 1-6 has been very bright (at least a full
magnitude brighter than the +2.2 predicted, using "Quicksat
intrinsic magnitude" ["q.i.m."?] of +4.5).
About 14 minutes later was #25579 (98-74C, Iridium 98 [or 11A?]
Rk -- a Delta) with range at culmination of about 195 km (122
miles!). It was easy at one-power (about +1 I think), from a
poor location. This one's SatEvo-predicted decay is in 2 or 3
weeks. I think it's tumbling slowly; during mid-pass it
disappeared for a few seconds but then reappeared.
Two old rockets, #13121 (82-27B, Cos. 1346 Rk, q.i.m. +3.5) and
#01844 (65-106B, Cos. 100 Rk, q.i.m. +4.0) were much brighter
than predicted for Tuesday evening (+4.0 and +2.7 respectively).
A nice pass of UARS (#21701, 91-63B) went less than .5 degree
below the Moon.
Location for these was 30.3086W, 97.7279N, 150 m.
Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA