I've tried to watch about every NOSS 2-__ trio pass that I could in the last few years, and I want to venture to advise that in my experience they really tend to be quite a bit brighter, often being visible without binoculars on good nights, on southbound evening passes (northern hemisphere), while they tend to be much fainter on northbound passes. Right now NOSS 2-1 are making southbound passes, while NOSS 2-3 are making northbound ones. I've been able to see NOSS 2-1 on almost every pass, including just a while ago with the poor sky conditions. On the other hand, when I've tried NOSS 2-3 in the last several days, most of the time I have not been able to find them. I don't mean to discourage anyone from looking for them whenever they're going over; I'm just trying to help colleagues have realistic expectations about their visibility, based on my experience. Of course. "Your mileage may vary," as they say. For more information about them, see: http://www.satobs.org/noss.html One additional source is Gunter Krebs's Space Page, where he calls them "Ranger": http://www.skyrocket.de/space/sat_mil_usa.htm http://www.skyrocket.de/space/doc_sdat/ranger_noss2.htm In addition, the USA 160 pair, A & C, which run about six seconds apart, are fun and are somewhat brighter than the NOSS 2-__ trios. The speculation was that USA 160 was to be another NOSS trio, but no third fellow traveler ever appeared. 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://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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