Hi Ted, Interesting that you mention about ERBS. I took recently a telescopic sequence of it.One of the first things I saw during quick-inspection was its obvious color. I have to process them yet, I have still a lot to go, including Terra from the same night.I can tell that ERBS is a very difficult target for the telescope, it looks very small, but let's see what comes out. Ralf ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ted Molczan" <ssl3molcz@rogers.com> To: <SeeSat-L@satobs.org> Sent: Sunday, June 13, 2010 4:44 AM Subject: RE: Orange-Red satellite > Chris Spratt wrote: > > > Last night (June 11) at about 11:00pm PDT (-7 UTC) I saw through my > > binoculars a brightish (about mag. 2.5) reddish-orange satellite moving > > from North to the SE. > > When it crossed the line it was about 80 degrees up. Unable > > to id this one, and I have never see a satellite that color before. > > > > I believe that some satellites are a golden color but not the > > color of Mars. > > > > Any help iding this is appreciated. > > The four reddest satellites I know are: > > ERBS 84108B 15354 > Lacrosse 2 91017A 21147 > Lacrosse 3 97064A 25017 > Lacrosse 4 00047A 26473 > > You did not indicate the precision of the time of your observation, but > taken loosely, Lacrosse 3 may be a match. It made a NW-SE pass that > culminated 58 deg above the SW horizon at 10:28 PM PDT (Jun 12, 05:28 UTC). > It is predicted to have reached mag 2.8 +/- 1.5. The elevation is lower than > you reported, but it is common to over-estimate elevation by 10 to 20 deg. > > If you are certain that you could not have seen Lacrosse 3, then I may still > be able to identify it, if you could provide more precise information, e.g. > describe its path through/near a constellation or near a star. > > The NRO "National Reconnaissance Office" released a photo of what is > believed to have been a Lacrosse under construction: > > http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/images/compos.jpg > > The gold coloured thermal blanket covering much of the surface of the first > four Lacrosses gave them their orange-red hue. Lacrosse 5 (05016A / 28646) > apparently uses little or no gold thermal blanket, so it appears nearly > colourless. > > The reddest satellite I have observed is ERBS (Earth Radiation Budget > Satellite), listed above. This photo of its deployment from shuttle > Challenger reveals that it was almost completely swathed in gold coloured > thermal blanket: > > http://satobs.org/seesat_ref/misc/ERBS_deployment.jpg > > It is currently making evening passes at your latitude, so you may wish to > have a look. I last observed it about 20 years ago, so would be interested > to learn whether or not it remains reddish. > > Ted Molczan > > _______________________________________________ > Seesat-l mailing list > http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l > _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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