Greetings, all... I was out last evening assaying prospects for setting up the telescope to observe the Moon at around 20:45 when I noticed a very bright star-like object high in the western sky. Now, being an astronomer and working for USNO I *knew* that Venus wasn't supposed to be there, but whatever this was persisted for perhaps a minute or so, much longer than an Iridium flare. I was able to sight it in 7X50 binox, which confirmed it was actually there, but motion, if any, was fairly slight. There appeared to be a slightly oval source to the light, but that was probably an artifact of the binox (they live in the trunk of the car and get beaten around alot) or my astigmatism. I decided to get the telescope (home-brew 8-inch Dobsonian) out and on it in a hurry...but I didn't hurry enough. By the time I got it out of the garage a minute later the light had gone. Running several sat-tracking programs, the concensus was that Cosmos 382 (04786 70103A) was in the right place at the right time. Has anyone ever seen a bright long-lived "flare" off this bird? Does anyone know what kind of satellite it is? It seems to be in a fairly high orbit... Thanks... Geoff Chester USNO Public Affairs Office ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Jun 12 2000 - 10:20:47 PDT