First clear night in six. Mike had predictions for Double Star 1 -- called "Tan Ce" ("Explorer") 1 in China, which is in an extremely eccentric orbit: DOUBLESTAR (TC-1) 1 28140U 03061A 04020.43761405 -.00000732 +00000-0 +10000-3 0 00168 2 28140 028.2897 021.4342 8496920 125.5372 343.1727 00.87614703001040 Mike found it flashing! As it got higher in the sky in the west and closer range, both Fred (7x50) and I (8x42) could see a fair portion of its maxima with our binoculars. I believe the range at the time was about 3000 to 3500 km. As this is a newly launched payload, I looked it up and found that it's fairly compact and is spin-stabilized at 15 rpm: http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=31616 Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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