Re: Cosmos 2219r Tumbling?

Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Sat, 19 Jun 1999 16:09:50 -0500

J. Kocijanski (kocis@catskill.net) wrote:

] Last night I observed Cosmos 2219r at around 9:51 EDT moving NE 
] through the Keystone.  I seemed to vary in magnitude greatly.  
] ...  Does this indicate that it is tumbling?  

This object (22220, 92-76B) clearly was tumbling slowly on its 
pass over here last night; at one power I observed three maxima.  
Listening to WWV in the background, I estimated about 65 seconds 
between the second and third maxima.

Other things--

There have been very spectacular passes of Iridiums 11 (24842, 
97-30G), 14 (23836, 97-30A), and 79 (25470, 98-51D) here recently.
Iridium 14 has been doing a series of double flashes separated by 
only about 0.5 second.

Observed 99099 last night with binoculars, but I was not able to
find Starshine (possibly due to some clouds in the way).  ISS was
nice but not exceptional.

Milstar 3 (25724, 99-23A) and its Centaur (25725, 99-23B) are 
pretty easy to find on most passes as long as conditions are 
reasonably favorable.  The Centaur's tumbling appears to be 
somewhat asymmetrical -- two equal maxima but one minimum fainter 
than the other; the maxima occur just a bit less frequently than 
the ticks of WWV.

DSP 19 Titan (25670, 99-17B) is very bright, tumbling slowly.

Some USA 86 (22251, 92-83A) passes recently have been visible at
one power, even from mid-city.

IntelSat 503 Rk (13007, 81-119B) is a nice almost one-power 
flasher that I've seen several times lately; its period is about 
6.8 seconds.

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there!

Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA