For those who may be interested and will have favorable weather -- Superbird A (89-041A, 20040) is nearing the meridian for us here and so is well-placed for the Central and Eastern time zones. (It's too early in the evening for Mountain and Pacific time.) Tonight its flash episode will occur when it's roughly a little south of a line between nu and omicron of Serpens Cauda, about RA 17:30-35, Dec -13.1 (epoch 2000). This will be about 3:25-30 UTC (10:25-30 PM Central Daylight Time). Adding xi Ser just SSW of omicron, the three stars will pretty nicely frame the flash episode, which is easy to see with small binoculars. It flashes every 11 seconds for three or four minutes. If you catch it early, you may see it only every 22 seconds, but it will soon change to every 11 seconds. If you see it every 22 seconds, and then it disappears, you caught the last part of the episode. It flashes a few minutes later for Eastern Time locations, and from one night to the next it flashes roughly one to two minutes earlier, and slightly west of its position on the previous night. Here's a similar message I sent about it a few years ago: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Dec-2002/0025.html (In the northern hemisphere winter months, Mountain and Pacific time zones also get to see it!) I believe that it was first spotted flashing in September 1996, but unfortunately the SeeSat-L messages from that specific week of that month seem to have been lost to history. (In the past people have sent me copies of the archives, but none of them ever included that week!) Ed Cannon - Austin, Texas, USA __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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