Bjorn Gimle wrote: > I had a clear day, and searched in the interval -5/+5 min > over gamma-delta-epsilon UMa (alt 39 deg) where 96-072 A > should pass. I used the 7*30 binoculars I have in town. > > This is the fifth pass I haven't seen since Feb.12 Bjorn, I need to make certain that I understand when the object first failed to appear for you. On Feb 13 UTC, you wrote: http://satobs.org/seesat/Feb-2004/0085.html "I did see USA 129 on the first pass above the trees in NE, but it was too cloudy to find star splits, and I lost it. By the next pass it was too cloudy to continue." I took that to be the pass that culminated about 26 deg above the NE horizon, near 17:45 UTC on Feb 13. On Feb 15 UTC, you wrote: http://satobs.org/seesat/Feb-2004/0109.html "After Russell's next obs on Feb.11 I tried to see it on four passes with fair to good seeing, two of them above 40 degrees elevation. On the high passes, I first watched to +30s in scope, then at 1-power and finally in binoculars." What were the dates and times of the four passes? You went on to write: "On a low pass, I saw something at the edge of of the field (18:47 feb.13?) but failed to follow it." I believe this refers to the pass that culminated about 26 deg above the NE horizon, near 17:45 UTC on Feb 13. If I take NE literally, i.e. azimuth 45 deg, then you would have been expecting the object at about 17:45:48 UTC. Assuming USA 129 did not show, then the first object which might have been mistaken for it, was the rocket body of the IRAS satellite, which passed about 7 deg lower than USA 129's predicted track. IRAS r 6.4 2.0 0.0 5.9 d 13.3 1 13778U 83004B 04042.80990755 .00000142 00000-0 11403-3 0 7766 2 13778 100.0413 118.5586 0021515 56.5291 303.7927 14.08307142 80800 Bjorn, if you recall your planned intercept point of USA 129, then I will repeat this analysis. Ted Molczan ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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