Ed, Rob, list members: I finally feel like I have somthing useful to contribute... :-) I was able to view Ed's Unk 90007 object last night from my front yard in Alexandria, VA (77.0725W, 38.8264N). I searched for it with my home-built 8-inch f/6 Dobsonian, finally acquiring it at 3:04 UTC. It was probably already well into its flash cycle, since it was easy to spot just north of Iota Virginis, and the "primary" flash was easily brighter than the star (cataloged at 4.06). I watched it continuously for the next 20 minutes, sometimes with 7X50 binox, sometimes with the telescope. The flashes appear to be quite complex. The "primary" flash recurs about every 48 seconds. It is very abrupt, similar to those from Superbird A. About 25 seconds after this flash, there is a "secondary" flash that is about a magnitude fainter, This flash is preceeded by 2 "sparkles", about 1/4 second duration, that appear about 1/2 second before the "secondary". One of these "sparkles" follows the secondary as well. These "sparkles" are about 8th or 9th magnitude, and have a whiter color than the primary and secondary flashes, which are noticeably yellowih in tint. This pattern repeated itself for some 10 minutes. By 3:15 the brightness of the primary and secondary flashes started to fade, with the primary falling below 6th mag by 3:20. At this point the "sparkles" diasappeared, and over the next 3 cycles the secondary faded to invisibility. The primary, however, changed characteristics from a "flash" to more like a "flare" of at least one second duration. By 3:24 these, too, were becoming faint, and by 3:25 they were no longer visible in the telescope. The weather, of course, has socked us in again, but it looks like we may have a decent spate coming up towards the weekend. I hope to get a "country" view in the 14.5-inch on Friday night. By then I will have set my watch to USNO UTC. I hope to get a better look at these interesting flash dynamics then. In the meantime, all you east-coast SeeSaters should try for this one. It is definitely well worth watching! Cheers, 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
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