Feb. 9 UTC (Tuesday evening local), one-power flashes were again observed from TDF 1 (88-98A, 19621, a near-geosynch satellite) from about 1:48:26.75 to about 1:51:25.50. There may have been one-power flashes before they were first observed. The first flash seen in binoculars was at about 1:47:20.25. One-power flashes were visible about every 16.34 seconds for about three minutes. By about 1:59:03.20 the flashes were almost too faint for me to see in 10x50 binoculars and were fading quickly. Mike McCants observed it with his 8-inch telescope and at a certain point began to see double flashes, and while they were visible, they changed from one being brighter to being of equal brightness to the other being brighter. A number of the double flashes were visible in binocs. Although the one-power flashes were about every 16.34 seconds, my understanding is that that is actually half of the rotational period. The observing location was 30.314N, 97.866W, 280m. 88- 98 A 00-02-09 01:52:47.4 EC 294.1 0.2 9 32.68 mag +2->inv; 18 half-per. On Feb. 6 one-power flashes were observed at about 1:12:48, so after three nights the one-power flashes were roughly 36 minutes later. The satellite drifts westwards about six degrees per night. Of course right now the Sun is moving northwards a certain amount each night also. The Feb. 6 observing site was about 30.884N, 98.430W, about 360m. Thanks to Rick Baldridge for finding the earlier data on this one! 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://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Feb 09 2000 - 01:21:43 PST