After three nights of rain, we had a pretty nice evening. I managed to get Superbird (89-041A, 20040) near the beginning of the episode, but it had double interference. First, a highly retrograde, very faint object went past it, going south. I've identified that as 65-078B, 01616, OV1 2 Rk, inclination about 144. After that one got too faint, I went back to Superbird. Then there was a slow flash below it. Gorizont 13 (17083) has already come back around. PPAS: 86- 90 A 04-06-11 03:19:23 EC 690.9 0.2 8 86.36 +5.0->inv I timed Superbird from 3:01:13.4 until I left it at 3:07:35.8 June 11 UTC. Iridium 920 (97-034C, 24871) was quite spectacular on a pass that culminated at alt. 41, azi. 278. Before culmination it did two quick groups of bright flashes and then a minute later did two more. The brightest ones were about 1.3 seconds apart, but secondaries were visible with magnification. The NOSS 2-2 triangle was again visible without binoculars. They are 91-073 C, D, and E (21799, 21808, 21809). Just before them USA 129 (96-072A, 24680) did one of its best passes, easy to see without binoculars for at least a minute. Twice recently Mike has had predictions low in the south for XTE (95-074A, 23757, the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer -- http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xte/XTE.html --), and I've been able to see it with 8x42. NOSS 3-2 A and C (03-054A and C; 28095 and 28097) unexpectedly passed very near, just above Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT). Earlier Mike got C/2002 T7 (LINEAR) with the scope, and I think I was able to see it some minutes later, when the sky got darker, with my 8x42. Milstar 3 (99-023A, 25724) was visible without binoculars for a lot of its pass. It did two flashes about 116-117 seconds apart. The first was about zero magnitude. The usual spring-summer low clouds from the Gulf of Mexico came in soon after 11:00 PM local (4:00 UTC). BCRC observing site: 30.315N, 97.866W, 280m. Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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