Gorizonts 14 (17969) and 17 (19765) were both easy with my 10x50 binoculars last night, even with the nearly full Moon. Gorizont 17's asymmetrical secondary flash was very faint, just barely visible using Mike McCants' 8-inch telescope. It was very easy to aim at Gorizont 17 -- very near the flashing red light at the top of the radio tower that dominates the site. 87- 40 A 01-01-08 02:49:34.2 EC 3000.2 0.3 35 85.72 mag +4.5->inv 89- 4 A 01-01-08 03:33:41.2 EC 1602.1 0.3 20 80.10 mag +4.5->inv & 2ndary Iridium 44 (25078, 97-077B) did some nice one-power flashes. I was able to use only three cycles for the period due to three other ones that didn't fit at all. 97- 77 B 01-01-08 01:15:44.1 EC 58.0 0.3 3 19.3 mag 0->inv OAO 2 Rk (03598, 68-110B) did one of its much brighter than usual passes -- easy to see without magnification. (I'm not sure that all newbies know about it and its two cohorts.) An Ariane fragment, 86-019T (17123) tumbled slowly to at least +3.0, at least +1.5 magnitudes brighter than my prediction. This was in the west with a so-so phase angle. Observing location was BCRC: 30.314N, 97.866W, 280m. During the previous few days, I've seen two flares from Iridium 21 (the new "21", 25778/99-032B, one of the ones with a "?") that were pretty close to the Iridflar predictions. One of them was less than a minute before a nearby, extra-long, superbright flare by Iridium 62 (25285, 98-021A) which made it seem pale by comparison. Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Jan 08 2001 - 01:08:20 PST