On Sun, 10 Feb 2002, Michael McCants wrote: > I was able to observe HESSI and its Pegasus rocket for about 20 > seconds before shadow entry on Saturday evening. The predictions > were 26 degrees up at azimuth 300. The range was about 1100Km. > They were coming "up". I used my 8 inch telescope. > > HESSI gave flashes to magnitude 8 and 9. It was invisible > between flashes (fainter than mag 10.5). The period seemed to be > about 5 seconds. > > Its Pegasus rocket seemed to have a "smooth" tumble from magnitude > 8 to invisible with a period of about 10 seconds. > > I would guess a Quicksat intrinsic magnitude of about 6 and a > regular intrinsic magnitude of 7 or 7.5 for both. > > Observations at 02:35 and 02:38 UT Feb 10 from BCRC (30.3, 97.9). > We also observed these objects (barely) with 7x50 and 10x50 binoculars as they passed through Taurus and upper Orion. At 23:19 UTC on 2002 Feb 09, 27370 (=02-004A = HESSI) appeared at magnitude about 7.0 and may have been varying. The corresponding "intrinsic" (i.e. quicksat) and "standard" (i.e. SkyMap) magnitudes were about 7.0 and 8.2, respectively. Two minutes later (23:19 UTC), 27371 (=02-004B = HESSI Pegasus R/B) was seen varying with a maximum brightness of about 6.4 magnitude, corresponding to intrinsic/standard magnitudes of 6.5 and 7.5, respectively. All magnitudes are +/- 0.5 and were estimated from neighboring stars in a not-very-dark light-polluted sky. Clear and dark skies! Ed and Darlene Light Lakewood, NJ, USA N 40.1075, W 074.2312, Hgt +24 m (80 ft) ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Feb 11 2002 - 06:52:41 EST