Hi All, Success!!! I finally matched up the starfield, and have now positively identified the satellite in this movie: > http://leonid.arc.nasa.gov/IMAGES/leonid-satellite.mov It was indeed DFS 3 R/B (USSPACECOM #22176, 92066B), one of the three candidates I listed earlier. There were a number of reasons why it was hard to match up the starfield -- first, the diagonal field of view is only about 18 degrees, so recognizing a constellation is pretty much out. Second, these intensified CCD cameras are more sensitive to red light then our eyes are, so the comparative brightness of stars in the video doesn't quite match the comparative visual magnitudes. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, my assumed aircraft location (Okinawa) was off quite a bit, and since the camera was pointing nearly at zenith, this caused the satellite track to shift significantly relative to the stars. What's amusing is that I can now tell FISTA where they were on 11/18/1998 at 4:43:35am UTC+9, since I simply moved the SkyMap observer location until the satellite lined up correctly relative to the stars! Their approximate location was latitude 23.05N, longitude 126.27E -- a couple hundred miles southwest of Okinawa. The bright star in the upper left of the frame is beta Geminorum (Mv +1.22), aka Pollux, and the camera is pointing about 10 degrees north of the zenith. I can provide a SkyMap configuration file to anyone interested in comparing the video with my analysis. The track is a perfect match. Happy New Year to All, Rob ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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