Michael McCants wrote: > Last night we had a pass of Coriolis low in the west. (Alt > 22 Azi 267 Range 1100 miles.) In spite of the poor phase > angle, it was seen flashing to about magnitude 5.5 or 6 every > 1.8 seconds with a minimum magnitude of only about 7.5. > Because it's sun-sync at dawn/dusk, wintertime is the only > chance to see it. I would like someone else to report on it. I observed it for several minutes on 2002 Jan 21 beginning at about 23:12:30 UTC. I timed the flash period at about 1.9 s. The flash pattern was complex, with secondary maxima that I was unable to time. It was easy to see in 11x80's, despite the poor phase angle. From the satellite's builder: http://www.spectrumastro.com/PDFs/Coriolis-Web.pdf "WindSat [one of the instruments] is a 341 kg, yaw-spinning, passive, polarimetric microwave radiometer developed by the U.S. Navy and the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Integrated Program Office (IPO). The NPOESS IPO is using WindSat as risk reduction in the development of the Conical Microwave Imager Sounder (CMIS)." - Vehicle Envelope: 6.9 m high x 3.0 m diameter, deployed - Mass: 817 kg at launch (395 kg dry bus; 82 kg propellant; 340 kg PL) - Radiometer antenna assembly spinning about yaw at 29.6 RPM Ted Molczan ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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