A clear night, at last...
Stephmon@aol.com
Sun, 6 Jun 1999 23:02:29 EDT
Finally blessed with a clear night here in Orlando, FL. I had a chance to
watch a fair number of objects with a 1X limiting magnitude of roughly 4.5. A
faint haze and a street light, limited fainter observations to the eastern
sky.
All obs are Monday June 7 UTC. 3 and 4 day old Molczan TLE's. Flash periods
derived by counting shortwave 'pips'. [28.37612 N, 81.35404 W] Abbreviated
Satellite Hunting output and my notes follow...
UTC Name ID Elev Azim Mag
01:26:10 HST 20580 20° 260° [W] 3.3
01:29:16 HST 20580 84° 164° [S] 1.5
01:32:20 HST 20580 20° 086° [E] 3.3
HST exhibited one brief (~1 second) flare to about -0.5 just before zenith.
UTC Name ID Elev Azim
Mag
01:46:37 Iridium 85 tum 25529 29° 168° [S] 5.4
01:48:30 Iridium 85 tum 25529 71° 088° [E] 4.2
01:51:03 Iridium 85 tum 25529 20° 009° [N] 5.9
Iridium 85 gave one sharp flash about every 37 seconds. Variable intensity
between flashes.
UTC Name ID Elev Azim
Mag
01:50:00 Cosmos 2360 r 25407 20° 193° [S] 4.6
01:54:02 Cosmos 2360 r 25407 82° 105° [E] 2.9
01:58:05 Cosmos 2360 r 25407 20° 022° [N] 4.6
Cosmos 2360 r also had a period of about 37 seconds. Ten seconds of
invisibility followed by 27 seconds of varying intensity with a weak flare
just before returning to invisible.
UTC Name ID Elev Azim
Mag
01:33:48 Cosmos 1145 11629 20° 010° [N] 5.0
01:35:56 Cosmos 1145 11629 53° 082° [E] 3.6
01:37:12 Cosmos 1145 11629 32° 142° [SE] 4.3
Cosmos 1145 was on time and steady at predicted magnitude.
UTC Name ID Elev Azim Mag
01:37:16 ERS-2 r 23561 23° 139° [SE] 5.0
01:40:15 ERS-2 r 23561 50° 074° [E] 3.9
01:43:36 ERS-2 r 23561 20° 007° [N] 5.1
ERS-2 r was rough to follow, but also on time and steady at predicted mag.
UTC Name ID Elev Azim
Mag
01:44:18 Meteor 1-28 r 10114 20° 038° [NE] 5.2
01:46:45 Meteor 1-28 r 10114 42° 100° [E] 4.2
01:47:45 Meteor 1-28 r 10114 35° 137° [SE] 4.4
Toughest by far at mag. 4.2, but managed to track it. Another on time and
steady at predicted mag.
_______________________________________
Regards,
Stephen
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x Satellite Hunting™ visible pass x
x prediction shareware v1.0.1 x
x is now available for download at x
x http://stephen.fathom.org/sathunt.html x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx