John wrote: > ... looking at the TLEs for the group , all seven satellites > are nicley clustered around 19.2 east. > > That being so , how do we explain this > > http://www.satcom.freeserve.co.uk/astrasjan1004.jpg > > Six birds in a nice tight group...but number seven . well out > to the east and still brighter than the rest. > Latest TLEs do indicate 1B is at 19.31 east.......my image > puts it at least 19.5 , if not further east. I downloaded from Space-Track.Org the epoch 05010.00 TLEs of all 7 objects, and computed their AZ, EL, lat and long at the time of your image, 2005 Jan 10 at 19:28:45 UTC: 22653 1993-031A Astra 1C 160.29 27.45 0.008 N 19.152 E 25785 1999-033A Astra 1H 160.25 27.44 0.008 N 19.186 E 23686 1995-055A Astra 1E 160.27 27.45 0.008 N 19.173 E 26853 2001-025A Astra 2C 160.27 27.35 0.082 S 19.195 E 25071 1997-076A Astra 1G 160.23 27.44 0.008 N 19.205 E 23842 1996-021A Astra 1F 160.19 27.43 0.008 N 19.237 E 21139 1991-015A Astra 1B 159.84 27.36 0.004 S 19.534 E The results confirm that at the time of your image, Astra 1B was well to the east of the six clustered close together. The relationships among the close six appear quite different from your image; however, I note that the TLEs of five of them were identical except of their mean anomaly, which seems unrealistic. Ted Molczan ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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