On June 19 (UTC) I saw an eastbound unidentified satellite pass very near Spica at "very roughly about a quarter to possibly one-half degree north of Spica (alpha VIR), or about RA 13:25.2, Dec. -10.9 [2000], at 2:19:01.5." Well, earlier tonight I may have seen it again (or if not then another one). Again I was at the Ney Museum, 30.307N, 97.727W, 150m. I was looking at Jupiter during a six-minute gap between early twilight predictions, and a satellite maybe at least magnitude +4 went just south of it, headed east. I grabbed and clicked my stopwatch as quickly as possible. So that yields a rough position of: 02:31:10 RA 16:38.2 DEC -21.9 (2000) I tracked it past groups of stars and clicked two or three times. Finally it went very near the following position: 02:33:19 RA 19:37.0 DEC -7.15 (2000) For part of the time between those two positions it was easy to see in the twilight without binoculars and so may have gotten as bright as mag. +2. Later in the evening USA 3 (84-065C, 15071) did some spectacular flashes visible without binoculars. I saw 22 objects visible without binoculars in spite of giving up early due to being eaten alive by mosquitoes. Somehow I failed to have a prediction for the new flashing Cosmos rocket that Mike observed. I would have been looking for that one! Ed Cannon - Austin, Texas, USA ____________________________________________________________________________________ Got a little couch potato? Check out fun summer activities for kids. http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=oni_on_mail&p=summer+activities+for+kids&cs=bz ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Jul 11 2007 - 09:30:25 EDT