Premature congratulations! I find no real alternative in satbase.zip, if you estimated the direction (and speed) of motion to be similar to to USA 116's. Within 6000 km range, +-3 min, +- 2 deg, mag +10 there is none, except - by coincidence - the latest known elset for USA 116, just 40 seconds (+8 orbits or so) behind. Because of its lower orbit, it wouldn't have exited Earth shadow at the place of your obs, and it would be 1.3 degrees further east. With 20% error in drag, my estimate would be +- 30 minutes, but the operational requirements on MM and i in relation to USA 129 are not known accurately enough, so I would estimate another +- 30 min because of MM. So we need another observation to know if the orbit is close, or must be adjusted by about +- 0.016 in MM. It could also be some other classified satellite, or debris. -- bjorn.gimle@tietotech.se (office) -- -- b_gimle@algonet.se (home) http://www.algonet.se/~b_gimle -- -- COSPAR 5919, MALMA, 59.2576 N, 18.6172 E, 23 m -- -- COSPAR 5918, HAMMARBY, 59.2985 N, 18.1045 E, 44 m -- > > I've observed what I believe may be USA 116. It's late here, so this is just > a quick report. I'll follow-up with more details and the position in IOD > format soon. > > 18 Jan 2001 15h 13m 02.6s UT > RA 21.199 DEC -80.527 J2000.0 > magnitude +7 > > Closest match is to the #70061 search element posted by Bjoern Gimle on Dec. > 18. Running parallel, ~1 min early and ~0.5 degrees to the east. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 : Thu Jan 18 2001 - 13:11:45 PST