Unexpecteds

Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Mon, 02 Mar 1998 02:56:19 -0600

Double flares from Iridiums (significant dimming between maxima)--

Ir 38 (25043, 97-69E), 27 Feb. 98, predicted 1:57:40 UTC, +3 
      followed by +2 maybe 15-20 (?) seconds later

Ir 44 (25078, 97-77B), 1 March 98, 1:40:15 UTC, +2 followed by 
      predicted +3 at 1:40:50

Might these caused by the satellite reorienting itself during the 
observation?

Unexpected non-Iridium flare--

1 March 98 UTC; for about 3-4 seconds around 1:56:50, northbound, 
max. mag. possibly -1.0, below (west of) Cass, at about alt. 25, 
azi. 325.  Upon checking afterward, I got a pretty good candidate:

  30.309  97.728  550.   Hyde Park, Austin, TX    2000  9.9  5 F F T T T

***  1998 Feb  28  Sat evening  *** Times are PM CST  ***  1911  615

 H  M  S  Tim Al Azi C Dir  Mag Dys F  Hgt Shd  Rng  EW Phs  R A   Dec

21798 DMSP B5D2-6    91 82A   6.4 1.7     6.4 3.9   5.0 
 7 56 47   .0 23 322   136  7.8   3 4  532 456 1075  .8 115 2352  55.2
 7 56 55   .0 22 323   137  7.9   3 4  532 457 1104  .8 115 2342  55.7

I wonder if this might be a predictable phenomenon.

Unexpected paucity of observations on a beautiful night--

Sunday evening (early Monday UTC) in San Antonio, darker than my apt. 
and work locations in Austin, only managed to see (using one-power) 
3 objects (compared with 8 from around my apt. the previous night)....

Still uncertain about the ID of the very brightly but irregularly (?)
flashing UNID that I and apparently Robert Fenske also saw Friday 
morning.

Ed Cannon
ecannon@mail.utexas.edu
Austin, Texas, USA