I got a bright flash from USA 129 (96-072A, 24680) at about 4:08:49.9 on July 16 UTC, only about two seconds earlier than the one that Paul saw. I was watching it in binoculars at the time and am not sure of its magnitude. Just as Paul noted, very soon after the flash, it quickly dimmed a lot, so I didn't follow it much farther. BCRC location: 30.3157N, 97.8663W, 280m. My understanding of USA 129 (perhaps totally incorrect!) has been that it's something like a Hubble Space Telescope -- except that it's pointed at the Earth. So I have thought that it's 3-axis stabilized but actively slewed around in order to make its selected observations. Last night Mike McCants and I saw a whopper -5 flash from Orion 3 (99-024A, 25727), so I'm expecting it to be quite exciting for the next few nights. Its flash period is about 21-22 seconds. Gorizont 14 (17969, 87-040A) has risen in the east, and on this visit at least it's as easy as Gorizont 16 (19397, 88-071A). In fact, Gorizont 14's flashes appear to be brighter, and its flash period is shorter -- about 87.8 seconds versus 95.4. But I don't know if it flashes pretty much all evening as does Gorizont 16. Have been getting some nice flashing Iridium partial passes, exiting shadow northbound in the north. So many clear nights I haven't had time to collect much data.... I wish I could share some of this nice, if hot (highs about 38 Celsius, 100 Fahrenheit lately), weather! Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jul 17 2001 - 03:26:50 PDT