Here's Paul Maley's message: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 17:36:53 -0800 (PST) From: J. Lynn Palmer <jlp@odin.mdacc.tmc.edu> To: SeeSat-L@blackadder.lmsal.com Subject: Sighting of Chinese spacecraft This is Paul Maley sending a message from my wife's email. While talking on the phone to Jim Oberg, he told me that the Chinese had launched a spacecraft today into LEO, possibly a precursor to a manned launch vehicle. Around 2330UT Jan. 9, I queried OIG and found an elset for 26664. After downloading it, I ran predictions and was startled to find a viewing opportunity here in Houston at 0017UT Jan. 10 just 47 minutes later. The sky was just getting dark but the pass was low elevation, reaching only 17 degrees elevation above azimuth 142. At the correct time and position, the object was spotted first using 25x150mm binoculars at magnitude +2, altitude 170 st. mi, range 490 st. mi. moving toward the east. I then went to naked eye observation. It was tracked for 71 seconds before entering the shadow of the earth. During this time it varied slowly from +2 to +3.5 to +3; easily visible to the naked eye and barely above the tree line. Launch time according to Jim Oberg was about 1700GMT, 7 hours 17 minutes before my sighting. No other objects were sighted. Paul Maley --------------------------------------- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bart De Pontieu -- bdp@lmsal.com -- http://blackadder.lmsal.com/~bdp/ (650) 424-3094 -- Lockheed Martin Solar & Astrophysics Lab, Palo Alto bart@satellite.eu.org -- 3251 Hanover St., O/L9-41, Bldg. 252, CA 94304 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 : Tue Jan 09 2001 - 18:12:23 PST