On Saturday Jeff Umbarger wrote: > Saw AM-11 at 6:50:30UT at RA:15hr39min and Dec.:-5.5deg > from Plano TX .... Expect to see it around 7UT tonight. Then early today (Sunday) he wrote: > Saw AM-11 at 7:02:00 UT at RA: 15hr 39min Dec: -5.5deg > at about +3.0mag. I believe this is the most distant > manmade object I have ever seen with the naked eye. > Just curious if others have seen naked eye objects > farther? Last night at BCRC Mike got the telescope on this one, Express AM-11 (28234, 04-015A), around 5:30 UTC I believe. It was fairly bright (for a geosynch), about +9, and seemed to be varying only somewhat. There were two in-plane geosats just to the east (and a bit south) of it. I first saw Jeff's first Sunday-morning message above at about 7:00 UTC (2:00 AM local) this morning and rushed outside to try to see it. When I was sure I saw it, the time was about 7:05 UTC, and it was about +4 magnitude, just south or maybe SSE of mu Ser (so roughly RA 15:50). I kept watching it, and every 8 to 9 minutes there was a maximum. The brightest that I saw was +2 at about 7:19, RA 16:04. In between the maxima it got very faint (12x60), maybeinvisible. The fourth maximum at about 7:28 was +3, and by 7:29 it was down to +6. I watched for one more maximum, and if there was one it wasn't much of one. This was about 2 miles (3km) north of BCRC, on the deck of the house of some friends. So, with a flash period of 8 to 9 minutes, I think this may be the slowest flashing geosynch we know of currently. This morning's episode was roughly 90 minutes later than 8 nights ago, so it's roughly 11-12 minutes later from night to night as it drifts westward. Thanks, Jeff, for the heads-up as to when to look for it! I'm also glad the weather was very nice. By 7:30 UTC or so, the Milky Way was faintly visible in the east. As to the question about most distant naked-eye object, I believe that ETS 6 (94-056A, 23230) may hold the record. I think it's been seen without magnification when it was at 25,000 miles (40,000 km). A number of the flashing geosynchs can be seen without magnification -- Superbird A, Telstar 401, Intelsat 512, TDF 1, Tele-X, ASC 1, GStar 3 and GStar 4, Italsat 1, etc. (There are quite a few of them, but most have to be found by accident; only Superbird A -- 89-041A, 20040 -- has been fully predictable, for years. And it should be rising in the east any night now.) Now -- I tried a few hours ago, right after seeing it, to send a message, but it apparently did not go through. If it does after I send this one, I beg everyone's pardon for the approximately duplicate messages. Ed Cannon - Austin, Texas, USA __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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