Optical 22 June 2007

From: Greg Roberts (grr@telkomsa.net)
Date: Sat Jun 23 2007 - 06:00:00 EDT

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    Observations 22 June 2007:
    -------------------------------
    
    Cosatrak 1 (Computerised satellite Tracking System).
    MINTRON low light level CCD surveillance camera (0.005 lux typical
    in non integration mode) and 0.00005 lux in STARLIGHT mode with 128
    frame integration.
    
    Used with 50mm focal length f/1.8 lens,integrating for 128 frames
    which is equivalent to an exposure of 2.52 seconds per image.
    
    Site 0433 : Longitude 18.51294 deg East, Latitude  33.94058 deg S,
    Elevation 10 metres - situated in Pinelands (Cape Town), South Africa
    
    For CLASSIFIED.TLE:
    --------------------------
    90060 06 640A   0433 P 20070622173544500 56 15 0926276+130721 39  +060 05
    90060 06 640A   0433 P 20070622173625800 56 15 1014308+133251 39  +055 05
    90060 06 640A   0433 P 20070622173725700 56 15 1206072+131624 39  +055 05
    90060 06 640A   0433 P 20070622173754500 56 15 1315369+115947 39  +052 05
    90060 06 640A   0433 P 20070622173814600 56 15 1404054+103713 39  +040 05
    
    Strays seen by accident:
    ---------------------------
    
    DMSP 5D-3 F17 debri
    29600 06 050BS  0433 P 20070622163901000 56 15 1138090+112428 39  +055 05
    Cobe
    20322 89 089A   0433 P 20070622164143800 56 15 1121010+094037 39  +025 05
    IRS B3
    23827 96 017A   0433 P 20070622165314100 56 15 1155130+334214 39  +055 05
    Shavit rocket
    31602 07 025B   0433 P 20070622173407500 56 15 0927120+120921 39  +065 05
    
    Notes:
    -------
    
    (1) Poor conditions - lot of high cloud, bright moonlight and excessive
        dew.
    
    (2) DMSP 5D-3 F17 debri seen by accident - looks like interesting flash
        pattern - difficult to establish due to integrated images but looks
        like two short bright flashes then nil then another two bright
        flashes etc.
    
    (3) Cobe slow variable around mag +5 to +6, did a short flash to mag 2.5
    
    (4) Shavit rocket -looks like short period variation - could be regular
        and ranging from Mag +6.5 to invisible.
    
    (5) An unknown seen, but since rather diffuse and gave a "funny" orbit
        concluded it must be a bird .
    
    (6) Only more interesting "strays" measured and reported.
    
    (7) Positions of 90060 done with SATREC. I have concluded that the
        magnitudes reported by this program are not always even reasonably
        close -if a star happens to "underlie" the image of the satellite
        it gives the stars magnitude. This is not a real problem if image
        scale is large enough but with this particular lens there are plenty
        of stars crammed in a small space.
    
    Cheers
    Greg
    
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