Telstar 401, TDF 2, ASC 1, et al.

From: Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Date: Sun Jan 20 2002 - 05:06:02 EST

  • Next message: Alan Pickup: "Decay watch: 2002 January 20"

    Telstar 401 (93-077A, 22927) episodes for three evenings:
    
    2001 Jan 16 2:53:27 to 3:25:28 UTC - 38 minutes total
    2001 Jan 17 2:44:03 to 3:00:03 UTC - 16 minutes total (clouds)
    2001 Jan 20 1:42:20 to 2:12:20 UTC - 30 minutes total
    
    Last night Mike McCants and I both saw the brightest flash, 
    with brightness comparable to Rigel (alpha ORI, +0.3), at 
    about 1:52:20 UTC.  At least seven flashes were visible 
    without magnification.  I think that the time of the last 
    flash seen is the most reliable for comparisons of when 
    episodes occurred.  On Jan 9, the last flash was at about 
    5:07:08, which works out to the episodes being almost 16 
    minutes earlier per night.  So I plan to start looking, if 
    the weather permits, at about 1:20 (7:20 pm CST) tonight 
    if not a bit earlier.  (It's about to overlap LEO time.)  
    I've been told that on any given evening, it will flash 
    earlier farther to the north of our latitude.  As usual,
    towards the end of the episode the magnitudes of the 
    flashes alternated brighter and fainter.  PPAS report:
    
    93- 77 A 02-01-20 02:12:20   EC 1800.0 0.2  15 120.00 +0.5->inv
    
    TDF 2 (90-063A, 20705) was visible in my binoculars last 
    night -- for the first time in a long time.  This one 
    drifts to the west fairly rapidly from night to night.  
    Some of the maxima were very quick double flashes.  It 
    has been as bright as +4 in the past, and it has one of 
    the shortest flash periods of the flashing geosynchs, 
    about 22 seconds.  PPAS report:
    
    90- 63 A 02-01-20 03:42:51   EC  374.6 0.3  17 22.03  +6.5->inv  some doubles
    
    ASC 1 (85-076C, 15994), another flashing geosynch, only 
    2.5 minutes between flashes!  PPAS report:
    
    85- 76 C 02-01-20 02:58:03   EC 1217.0 0.5   8 152.1  +4.0->inv 
    
    Iridium 920 (24871, 97-034C) did some bright flashes.
    
    Mike found both of the 02-001 objects again, after a 
    couple of nights of unfavorable weather.  We also were 
    able to observe 90006; I saw some of its flashes with my
    10x50 binoculars, but generally it requires a telescope.
    It's a very interesting irregular fairly rapid flasher.
    
    Mike suggested that I look at 82-041C (13172; called 
    "OPS 6553" in the Satellite Situation Report).  In the
    quicksat.mag file it's called "KH 9-17 Caps".  It's a
    neat fast flasher that's easy in binoculars -- at least
    it was last night.
    
    Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA
    
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