Earlier I found Yuri 3B (91-060A, 21668, a.k.a. BS-3B) with binoculars and realized some flashes were quite bright. I tried and did see two of them without binoculars, somewhat brighter than nearby iota Hydra (+3.9 according to HomePlanet), at 5:50:12.0 and 5:52:27.8 Feb 20 UTC. It was interesting also because for a while (5:29:50.72 to 5:43:24.75) I could see half-period secondary flashes, but in the middle of that time I was not able to see it between 5:36:37.7 and 5:41:09.4! Also, between 5:56:99.06 and 6:04:54.69 there seemed to be a phase shift, as that time amounts to 3.5 cycles. I saw three more cycles after the phase shift but was then interrupted by a passerby and his rowdy dog. PPAS report up to phase shift: 91- 60 A 02-02-20 05:56:59.0 EC 2849.8 0.3 21 135.70 mag +3.5->inv Location was E. Ney Museum grounds: 30.307N, 97.727W, 150m. Earlier, on my way home from work -- without my long-distance glasses (i.e., with workplace glasses made for near vision only, because I managed to go to work without any distance vision glasses [uh, well, except for my prescription sunglasses]) -- I saw several very bright flashes from Iridium 24 (25105, 97-082B). This was another occasion when it was very irregular. However, a few days ago I did get a nice flash period for it as it was going away low in the north, 14 consecutive flashes all mag. zero or brighter: 97- 82 B 02-02-15 01:19:14.55EC 131.0 0.2 14 9.36 mag -2.0->inv With the same near-vision glasses I was also able to see Lacrosse 3 Rk (25018, 97-064B), Cosmos 389 Rk (04814, 70-113B), and a flare from Iridium 3 (25431, 98-048A)! (With those glasses my limiting magnitude seemed to be about +2.5.) From several nights ago, here are a few flash timings of 99-503A (90003), a very interesting unknown drifting near- geosynch observed with Mike McCants' telescope: 99-503 A 02-02-12 04:00:31 EC 84.7 0.3 4 21.2 asymm 2ndaries Here are four flash cycles which show the asymmetry: 13.39, 7.71, 3.89, 9.56, 7.70 13.49, 7.69, 13.47, 7.79 I'm hoping to see some one-power ETS-6 (23230, 94-056A) flashes later today (local time). I'm also planning to jump onto the flaring geosat bandwagon soon! As Kevin Fetter has said, we're in flaring geosat or geosynch season, when operational geosats can flare from five to possibly ten magnitudes brighter than normal. It should be going strong here after the full Moon. Some time ago I attempted to construct a "schedule" for the February-April season, based on Rainer Kresken's schedule for the September-October season: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Mar-2000/0107.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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Feb 20 2002 - 04:57:35 EST