Last night (early March 16 UTC) I was tracking NOAA 7 with my binoculars and saw a +4.5 flash from a different object in the field of view. In a few seconds it flashed again. This unexpected flashing object was "not moving". It was in the north-northeast, north of the bowl of the "Big Dipper". Mike McCants soon found the object with his telescope, and we observed it for 45 to 50 minutes, throughout which time there continued to be some flashes at least as bright as +4.5. After getting back to his computer, Mike determined that it was Molniya 3-27 (16393, 85-117A), which we have observed as a one-power flasher in the past. However, last night it was first observed flashing to at least +4.5 when its range was more than 32,000 km (20,000 miles)! Although they were fast, I think the brightest flashes might have been visible without magnification from a dark-sky site. Flash period was about 10.2 seconds. 85-117 A 01-03-16 02:26:40.3 EC 254.5 0.4 25 10.18 mag +4.5->inv Observing location was BCRC: 30.314N, 97.866W, 280m. Aside: Thanks very much to Allen Thompson for pointing out that article about NGSOs! Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Mar 16 2001 - 14:28:06 PST