Dear David, I observed Genesis-1 and its rocket this morning and found no significant discrepancy against predictions made using half-day-old elements (i.e. both objects appeared within a second or two of prediction). The rocket was seen first at about 6th magnitude from 07:04.5 to 07:05.4 UTC (2006 July 14th). Then, from 07:12.4 to 07:12.9, the Genesis itself from 4-1/2 to 5 magnitude. Very surprising, though, was an apparent pass of the Cosmos 2421 = 06-026A satellite. At about 07:18.5, it emerged from shadow VERY bright (i.e. brighter than Deneb but fainter than Vega) in Cepheus. As I followed it downward, it didn't seem like an Iridium-like flare (unless it was a very long one - some trees prevented me from following it). A search using all available TLEs failed to come up with a viable alternate to 29247. IOD data: 29253 06 029B 8840 F 20060714070427000 28 S+058 03 29253 06 029B 8840 F 20060714070525000 28 S+063 03 29252 06 029A 8840 F 20060714071226000 28 S+044 03 29252 06 029A 8840 F 20060714071255000 28 S+053 03 29247 06 026A 8840 F 20060714071832000 28 S+006 03 What these numbers mean: http://www.satobs.org/position/IODformat.html Clear and dark skies! Ed Light Lakewood, NJ, USA Site 8840, N 40.1075, W 074.2312, +24 m (80 ft) On Fri, 14 Jul 2006, David Anderman wrote: > I believe that I observed Genesis-1 this morning, although it > appeared some 6 minutes early (I was not yet set up to observe when > this bright object passed overhead). The object was only observable > for about a minute before it passed into shadow, but it seemed to > significantly become brighter during that one minute; either a solar > panel or some other structure was illuminated by the sun (although > the object was flying between myself and the Sun) or it was tumbling, > albeit at a slow rate. > > Is Genesis-1 generating so much drag due to its inflation that it > could arrive 5 or 6 minutes early? Or, has Genesis-1 manuevered in orbit? > > Also, I notice that the upper stage is diverging significantly from > Genesis-1, could this be a function of Genesis-1 drag? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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