The weather here was mostly uncooperative for much of last night -- a lot of variable clouds at three different levels. But Mike McCants and I went to the observing location anyway in hopes of the sky improving enough to see 00653A. No such luck. However, we did get to observe a near-zenith, near- perigee bright pass of Simsat 1 Rokot (26367, 0026C). Its range at the near-zenith point was about 213 km -- and about 2 or 3 degrees west of a big cloud. It was still twilight, with the solar elevation about -10 degrees. With a Quicksat phase angle of about 70 to 80 (more than 50% illuminated), this object's magnitude appeared to be about +1. If it was varying at all, the twilight and sky conditions made it too difficult to see at 1x. It was moving very rapidly! That was the first "easy pickin'" (i.e., "picking", as in "like picking a ripe fruit off a tree"). Only a little while later I was still trying to see stars through "sucker holes" when I heard Mike mumble something like, "It's raining." Then I noticed he was packing up his equipment. Then I felt light raindrops. Hmmm. Bummer. So as not to have to walk home, I gave up also. When I got home, it was too late to see 00653A, even though by then I could see the most relevant stars off-and-on. Later the sky was somewhat better, so I thought I'd try another. To change metaphors, this one was like "shooting a fish in a barrel". About 90 or more minutes later than five nights ago, with variable thin clouds, the gibbous Moon 10 to 20 degrees away, and in the parking lot of my apartment, with city sky glow and nearby streetlights, traffic lights, security lights and cars passing on the street, I looked at the spot where TDF 2 (20705, 90-63A) was supposed to be at a range of about 37,600 km, and within a few seconds it flashed at me, about +4 if not brighter. I observed it for 10 or 15 minutes, flashing every 21+ seconds. Then I took a 15 minute break to eat a bite of something and then returned outside, and it was still flashing. Finally after several more minutes it did grow faint and disappear, a few minutes after local midnight (daylight saving time). It began with a few double flashes separated by more than one second, so I used that value as an uncertainty. 90- 63 A 00-06-07 03:12:23.2 EC 2943.8 1.0 136 21.65 mag +4.0->inv 90- 63 A 00-06-08 03:27:28.9 EC 2725.3 1.0 126 21.63 mag +4.0->inv 90- 63 A 00-06-13 05:09:29.0 EC 2421.0 1.0 112 21.62 mag +4.0->inv Observing location: 30.314N, 97.866W, 280m Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 : Tue Jun 13 2000 - 09:33:34 PDT