96072A & B obs Jan 13

Robert H. McNaught (RMN@AAOCBN1.AAO.GOV.AU)
Tue, 14 Jan 1997 11:24:48 +1100 (EST)

Observations from Bugaldie (31d07'32"S,149d06'52"E,AGD, 390m)

96072A
yyyy mmm dd hh mm ss.ss hh mm.m ddd mm
1997 Jan 13 11 43 26.58 12 12.0 -64 31
1997 Jan 13 11 44 50.50 10 16.2 -59 53
1997 Jan 13 13 20 41.30 23 26.6 -52 43
1997 Jan 13 13 23 36.48 01 09.0 -25 54

at about 1320.4 UT there was a slow flash reaching mag +2.5

96072B
The following scraps are a result or being somewhat rusty and also
straightforward incompetence

1997 Jan 13 12 43 22.71 20 57.9 -68 26
                              or
1997 Jan 13 12 43 22.71 21 01.5 -68 13

There is still the outside possibility that the satellite passed over a
different star still!  I obtained another "fix" but then noted I had
restarted the split time rather than stop it.  In the confusion, I again
forgot what star it passed close to.  The satellite passed thro either

RA 23 31.0 Dec -62 12
          or
RA 23 33.9 Dec -61 39

just a few seconds before complete fadeout in eclipse.  The flash period was
of the order of 1 min, with 1 very obvious sharp flash early on.
Perhaps someone can extract something from this mess!

Cheers, Rob McNaught