97-68B
Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Fri, 16 Jul 1999 04:59:25 -0500
Last night was the second great night in a row. Mike McCants
recovered 97-68B (25035, USA 136 Centaur) as it was coming
north from perigee. I was able to find it in my binoculars,
about +6 I guess. It's still flashing <grin>. I don't know
the exact numbers, but it was several (possibly up to ten)
minutes early on this elset:
Centaur Rk
1 25035U 97068B 99016.92061084 .00000000 00000-0 00000+0 0 02
2 25035 64.5800 281.1640 7023000 265.4800 94.1617 2.02916000 07
A number of other fun things were observed. There was a one-
power flare, about +2 when I first saw it just north of the
bowl of the Big Dipper (UMa). It lasted for several seconds
around 5:02 on 16 July UTC, and that appears to have been
SPOT 2 (20436, 90-5A). A series of one-power flashes from
that one's younger sibling, SPOT 3. Very nice -5 or -6 flare
by Iridium 63 at about 3:32:52, as predicted by Iridflar.
Additional observations of 99001.
I happened to point my binoculars just right to see a +3 or
+4 eastbound meteor streak through the field! I also saw a
one-power meteor about +1.
Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA