Ed, May be I saw this object recently. I did not yet identify it. I just remember such an object with about that flashing period in a Globalstarlike orbit. This means that this payload obviously lost its attitude control and might be no longer usable. Nice for us. More (Globalstars) to follow? > Not long after getting to the site, I was looking for an > old Cosmos Rk low in the east, and there was a slow-moving > northbound flashing object there also. It was flashing > about every 2.35 seconds. Mike thought the brightest flash > was about -2. Wow! A very neat "pre-id". > > A couple of hours later I had predictions for one I had seen > flashing a few months ago. I found it, and it got brighter > and brighter, until it did three consecutive flashes well > into negative magnitudes, the brightest at least -3 I'm sure. > After watching it some more, I checked my stopwatch. The > flash period was about 2.35 seconds! It must be the same > object as the pre-id two hours before! Findsat confirmed > that the early one was the same object, Globalstar 23 > (99-004A, 25621). Low in the east it flashed to about -2 at > a range of over 2400 km (1500 miles) and to -3 at 1600 km > (1000 miles)! Wow! PPAS: > > 99- 4 A 04-07-27 04:24:41 EC 271.3 0.4 115 2.359 -3->i > > Several nights ago, maybe two weeks, when it exited eclipse > low in the northeast, I couldn't find it. Globalstars are > generally not hard to see with 8x42 on good passes in spite > of their smallish size and relatively high orbit. Bram Dorreman COSPAR 4160 51° 16' 45.5" N 5° 28' 36.6" E (WGS84) 35 m ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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