Last night after TOPEX and before ATEX, when I looked for Landsat 5, I saw one going in a different direction (pretty much straight down). This weekend I'm house-sitting in Dripping Springs, Texas (30.190N, 98.086W, 275m). Findsat using alldat.tle yields no good match. The object was about +4 at first (which probably would have been visible without binoculars from here last night) but was about +5 by this fairly good position: 2004-07-04 03:58:34.5 RA 21:35 Dec +71.5 (2000) or maybe 2004-07-04 03:58:34.5 RA 21:40 Dec +71.0 (2000) I'm just using the Bright Star Atlas 2000 at the moment. FWIW, a possible prior position, between two stars which I may be able to confirm tonight, was: 2004-07-04 03:58:20 RA 19:55 +68.5 (2000) Of course I assumed, as always, that it was a known object and so didn't worry too much about it at the time. TOPEX (92-052A, 22076) reached +1.5 magnitude last night for at least 30 seconds and was easy without binoculars for much longer. Just before the normal summer night clouds arrived, I saw a notable pairing, with the follower overtaking the leader during the pass: Cosmos 860 (76-103A, 09486) in the lead at first, then passed by Cosmos 723 (75-024A, 07718). Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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