At 16:37 31/07/02, you wrote: >Hi everybody, > > >The other night, July 27 0910:20 UTC, I was randomly scanning the NE sky >with my 9x63 binoculars. I picked up a very dim, slow-moving satellite, >which I (in my inexperience and ignorance of any nearby constellations) >estimated to be maybe mag 7-8 or so. The only match I can find with >alldat.tle, and FindSat + Virtual Sky (for direction) is GPS 2-17 r2 >(22277). Its range was about 7500km, H-A mag 9.9, the sky was quite >clear (haze-wise) and not light-polluted (but not completely cold >either). Could I have seen something this dim and distant? Hello there Adam. If the object was as dim as predicted, probably not, as I suspect the limit of 9x63 binocs is around mag 8. However if the third stage rocket had as much as 1/6 of a square inch (about 1 sqof mirror like surface of 100% reflectivity, in the right orientation, it would have been possible. Since in general the greater the time interval since launch the slower the rotation rate, the greater is the chance that such a sun glint will last long enough to produce such an observation. Perhaps others on this list might be able to suggest the length of time involved for a sun glint from an locally fixed orientation in the GPS transfer orbit, as compared to an Iridium flare. From reports on flares from Molyniya orbit objects, I suspect its around a minute or so. Tony Beresford ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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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