On Dec. 25 UTC I had a prediction for and seem to have observed "Payload D" (27608, 02-058D). It was tumbling and flashing, including one flash of at least +1 if not brighter at about 1:14:02 (from San Antonio, Texas, 29.40N, 98.66W, 200m). I wonder about its true identity, as my understanding is that most of the payloads on that launch were microsatellites. Here are two elsets, the one for that night and a more recent one: PAYLOAD D 667 x 636 1 27608U 02058D 02357.55206756 .00002169 00000-0 35645-3 0 86 2 27608 64.5615 10.3438 0022440 134.5032 225.7908 14.72948985 427 Payload D (Saudisat 2?) 668 x 636 km 1 27608U 02058D 02361.55783605 .00001644 00000-0 27529-3 0 117 2 27608 64.5605 358.1534 0022435 132.4793 227.8209 14.72961730 1017 A while ago I observed Intelsat 512 (85-087A, 16101) from about 7:14:44.7 until 7:26:51.5, with a 128.27-second gap around the phase shift, when it was too faint for my 10x50 binocs. This was from right outside my apartment (30.309N, 97.728W, 150m), which is very light-polluted, so I did not try to see it without binoculars, although the brightest flashes might have been bright enough, at least under somewhat better circumstances. (A while before that, I saw Superbird A from San Antonio, about 147 km from my apartment in Austin. I wonder how often satellites are observed by one person from two cities in one night....) On the missing numbers 27406 and 27407, a while back Antonin Vitek suggested that they might have been reserved for other pieces from the Intelsat 903 launch (27403, 27404, 02-016A and B): http://satobs.org/seesat/Apr-2002/0004.html I've heard that sometimes some highly eccentric objects as those may be (if they are indeed up there) are somewhat tricky for SCC to track. Object 27405 was later identified as something else: Internatnl Designator CatNo Common Name Source LaunchDate ------------ ----- ------------------------- ------ ---------- 1990-065W 27405 CRRES DEB (CANISTER) US 1990/07/25 That's from http://satobs.org/seesat/Apr-2002/0241.html . Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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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