This morning, 2006 Jul 20 at 08:55:41 UTC, I happened to spot 99064A /25977 as an unknown as it passed near Altair, It was faint at minima, but its maxima were more like flares, to about mag zero. I estimate that its flash period was between 10 and 20 s. Helios 1B was manoeuvred from its operational sun-synchronous altitude to its present 600+ km graveyard orbit in the fall of 2004, after its on-board batteries failed. I was curious whether or not anyone else had reported it flashing, so I searched the web, and it turns out that I did, almost exactly one year ago - and the description still applies, so I saved myself a bit of typing: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Jul-2005/0184.html Ted Molczan ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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