At 11:25 07/06/01 -0400, Bruno wrote: > >A somewhat similar situation occurs for transits in front of the >Sun. The only verifiable observation I am aware of is the video >of ISS taken by Ron Dantowitz last December in Canada during the >partial solar eclipse. Quite a feat! > About a decade ago, I verified an observation of an object crossing the Sun. The observer was H.J.P. Arnold, the noted astrophotographer. He was observing the Sun telescopically using an H-alpha filter. He suddenly spotted a dark dot crossing the disc in less than a second, moving in a polar orbit. He had the presence of mind to note the time, accurate to a few seconds. Later he contacted me to see if it could be identified. I was somewhat dubious, believing that the explanation would be bird, balloon, or one of the myriad of other objects that cross our skies. It was a surprise when I determined that indeed a satellite (#17295 = 1987-03A = Cosmos 1812) had indeed passed close to the Sun in the sky at the reported time. However calculations indicated a near-miss rather than the observed transit. In was not until the precise latitude and longitude of the observer was used, and not the approximate co-ordinates which had originally been supplied, that revised calculation confirmed that a transit had actually occurred. Many transits of satellites across the Moon have been seen. My earliest such report was of one of the pieces of Sputnik 4 (1960 Epsilon) back in the early Sixties. My most recent was on 2001 March 5 at 19:45:08.77 U.T. when a Globalstar rocket (#25855 = 1999-37E) was seen to transit the Moon. The observation was reported at the end of my seesat message MAR5.OBS. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Best wishes, Russell Eberst Station 2420: Latitude 55.9486N, Longitude 3.1383W, height 150ft = 46m. Total Observations: 183919 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 : Fri Jun 08 2001 - 00:28:32 PDT