Hi.All As some of you know I have been observing and researching PAGEOS 1.Let me take the chance at this time to thank all who reply to my postings. I have now received e-mail to some questions I sent to NASA's orbital debris office and Space-Track .These agencies know little more,if not less than what I received from this e-mail group. Space-Track stated that the cross tagging or miss tagging of PAGEOS 1 was unlikely but they could not totally rule it out of the question. Space-Track forwarded my e-mail to the Air Force but I did not receive a reply. So being me,I call them up and asked my questions about the miss tagging, the break up in 1975 and 1976.Also I asked about the loss of tracking in the late 1970's and recovery in the early 1980's. Let me tell you guys that this e-mail group (SATOBS) has more information and knowledge about satellite history than you can find in a room full of space command,space-track or NORAD people. It seems to me that after PAGEOS 1 broke up in 1975 almost all history of the satellite has been forgotten or lost by these agencies. So I am back to the group to ask for help.Can anyone tell me where to look for the history of this satellite after the 1975 break up? I finished a timing run on PAGEOS 1 just about three minutes before local mid-night here. Had great conditions for observing.I could see stars to theoretical limits of my 80mm scope. PAGEOS 1 was running 5 seconds earlier than the latest prediction from Heaven-Above,+/- .5 seconds of timing error at a magnitude of about +9.0. I also track it as it moved to the north and observed a short flare of about magnitude +8.5.It still seems to me to slightly vary in brightness in short time spanneds as it moved along its track. The reason for the timing was for a fellow member of my astronomy who is going to try and image the main remains of PAGEOS 1.If he has any luck on PAGEOS 1 he is going to try for the secondary remains. Can anyone tell me if we get some fair high resolution image of the remains is it possible to figure out from the images what percentage of the balloon is still in orbit? And can you point us to where we can find the formulas to work this out from the images? Regards Thomas Dorman Horizon City,Texas ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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