On Thursday evening, Don Gardner saw an unid and posted:
>I observed a flasher that I thought to be a geosync flasher at
>first, except it was not in the Clarke belt.
>
>It began flashing at 03:13:49 UTC, 31 May at RA 14deg 15min
>01.6 sec, Dec +17deg 15min 40 sec - about 1.5 deg below
>Arcturus (az 196.25, el 67.4). Flashes were about 8 seconds
>apart and were typically +4 to +5.5 with some secondary
>flashes. I timed the flashes until 03:24 UTC.
Ed Cannon posted that MDS 1 was "in the vicinity".
Last night I happened to spot what I assume is this same object.
It was flashing to magnitude 6 or 7 with a period very nearly
equal to 8 seconds. I tracked it for a while and when I use Don's
obs to determine a mean motion, I get:
1 90012U 02154.20281134 0.00002000 00000-0 30012-2 0 08
2 90012 28.3079 168.6802 7250958 246.7117 95.8751 2.26525192 07
This compares very well in orbit plane, eccentricity, etc. with the
three cataloged objects associated with MDS 1:
1 27367U 02003A 02153.24344790 .00001705 00000-0 41409-2 0 774
2 27367 28.3283 169.1098 7230557 246.0866 26.2217 2.27159392 2684
1 27368U 02003B 02154.22212506 .00002469 00000-0 47613-2 0 796
2 27368 28.3607 168.6057 7239028 246.8135 25.8248 2.27057631 2708
1 27369U 02003C 02153.26820004 +.00005059 +00000-0 +98581-2 0 00741
2 27369 028.3522 168.9092 7234290 246.3552 026.0714 02.27534731002680
Since our obs do not match any of these objects, I assume that this
is an uncataloged fourth object.
Prediction for last night:
30.3138 97.8661 900. Bee Caves Rsrch Ctr
*** 2002 Jun 2 Sun evening *** Times are CDT ***
90012 Unknown M 4.5
U MAG HGT ALT AZI HRS MIN R A DEC RANGE
42 12.1 17371 67 235 11 40 13 35.3 16.3 17619
44 12.2 17994 68 238 11 50 13 42.8 17.2 18240
46 12.2 18569 68 241 12 0 13 49.9 18.0 18817
48 12.3 19098 67 244 12 10 13 56.7 18.8 19352
49 12.3 19583 67 247 12 20 14 3.1 19.5 19845
51 12.4 20024 67 249 12 30 14 9.3 20.1 20297
At this range of 19000 miles, the flashes were about 6 magnitudes
brighter than the background magnitude of 12 or 13. The flashes were
not as quick as solar panel flashes from Superbird A - they seemed
to last several tenths of a second. Even at 20000 miles, they were easily
visible in my 12x80 finder telescope.
Mike McCants
Austin, TX
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jun 25 2002 - 20:50:33 EDT