Re: Decay or meteor?
Tony Beresford (starman@camtech.net.au)
Tue, 19 Jan 1999 14:39:16 +1030
At 09:17 19/01/99 , John C. Broman, Jr. wrote:
>Being still quite a beginner in all this, I'd like some help and/or advice
>on a sighting tonight.
>
>At about 6:17PM tonight (1/18/99) I saw either a satellite decay or a
>meteorite. The particulars are as follows:
>
>My location: about 20 west of Washington DC
>Sighting direction: due west
>Path: straight down, from about 30 above the horizon to about 10 degrees above
>Color: white with blueish/greening tint
>
>There was no debris left trailing behind, and the continuous "tail" seemed
>at least several degrees long.
It was a meteor John. You dont say how much time was involved, but even
without that in this case its fairly easy to rule out a satellite decay.
Even decaying satellites move very close to horizontal, thus to be
a satellite it would have to be something due west of you and moving
further west this implies a strongly retro grade orbit of say 142 degrees.
Although such orbits exist, they are uncommon, and I dont think any predicted
decay for that date is currently in such an orbit.
Tony Beresford