81-075A #12645 Bulgaria 1300, put on a remarkable show at my location of 31.4 N 100.4 W. in Texas. As I shivered in the cold, it went from a dark object to a dim object (45 degree elevation) to a bright object (50 degree elevation) to a -4 magnitude object, easily my brightest spacecraft observation yet. It dimmed very rapidly and at 65 degrees elevation was invisible at magnitude 4.0 or worse. Venus was glittering on the southwestern horizon, which made this observation all the more remarkable. If anyone else has ever seen 81-075A do this, I'd like to hear from them. Date Time Azim Elev Alt Range Phase local deg deg km km degrees 18 Jan 1996 19:01:00 167.76 42.72 803.06 1116.54 95.1 (UTC-6) 19:02:00 149.04 62.06 805.39 898.07 107.8 19:03:00 72.67 71.24 807.94 846.99 121.5 19:04:00 30.25 52.32 810.70 989.55 127.5 19:05:00 20.02 35.76 813.64 1261.21 126.8 ================================================ | Sid Miller | sidneymiller@delphi.com | NH6TB | | POB 89103 | | San Angelo, Texas 76908 | | USA | ================================================