Kevin saw Apple flashing with an 18-second period, and last night he estimated +5 flashes in Orion and then later in Canis Major, with a faint lull in between. I got its last five elements and found a surprisingly (?) increasing mean motion and wonder if there's a propellant leak or something (or it's being moved to the graveyard?). Can the Moon and Sun perturb one in this way? BTW, what's with the extra zeroes and plus signs in the fourth elset? APPLE 1 12545U 81057B 04052.87959132 -.00000159 00000-0 00000+0 0 4274 2 12545 13.7786 14.6539 0026264 9.5158 350.4876 1.00022926 40848 APPLE 1 12545U 81057B 04051.87984976 -.00000167 00000-0 00000+0 0 4265 2 12545 13.7771 14.6360 0025426 9.1464 350.9161 1.00023968 40837 APPLE 1 12545U 81057B 04041.88269063 -.00000200 00000-0 00000+0 0 4255 2 12545 13.7725 14.7155 0025359 8.4037 351.6720 1.00026009 40739 APPLE 1 12545U 81057B 04040.88295956 -.00000203 +00000-0 +00000-0 0 04247 2 12545 013.7722 014.7218 0025092 008.7950 351.2780 01.00026267040724 APPLE 1 12545U 81057B 04029.88632208 -.00000251 00000-0 00000+0 0 4230 2 12545 13.7678 14.8018 0024855 8.3178 351.7463 1.00029526 40619 Here's a web page about a postage stamp dedicated to Apple with information about the satellite and an illustration: http://www.indianpost.com/viewstamp.php/Alpha/A/APPLE%20SATELLITE Gunter Krebs' page says that one solar panel failed to deploy: http://www.skyrocket.de/space/doc_sdat/apple.htm I hope to see this one tonight if at all possible. Daniel Crawford is here from Minnesota, and we hope that we will have a chance to observe while he's 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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