A few hours ago Eutelsat 2-F1 (90-079B, 20777) did a number of flashes visible without magnification, up to about +2.5. Friday evening we were watching USA 39 (89-46A, 20066, a DSP spacecraft) when I saw a bright flash to its right (north), and soon Mike got that one in his scope. He later identified it, and Saturday evening we observed it again for a good while. Its flash period is, um, either 54.50 or 27.25. It has a phase shift, which I think was at about RA 23:10 more or less at about 4:10 on Dec. 12 UTC. It's low in our WSW and drifting to the west from night to night. Mike's Molniya 1-53 (82-015A, 13070) is really neat! Thanks very much to Don Gardner for reporting Superbird (89-47A, 20040) several days ago. It's flashing very nicely as always, and its rotation period seems to have speeded up a little bit since it was last here. Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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