Object 68-14B showed up yesterday as an elset that was not in my file of all tles. Object 68-14A is OGO 5. Object 68 14B is its Agena rocket upper stage. Both objects have an orbital period of a little over 2 1/2 days. The last previous elset for 68-14B was in 1970. Object 68-14B (NCat 03145) is currently making perigee passes over the northern hemisphere every few days at a height of about 22000 miles. I would guess that its magnitude near perigee will be about 12th magnitude, but it could be a little brighter or fainter. It should be similar to the object that has been tracked by amateurs as NCat 03956 (69-46F). This object has a period a little greater than 2 days and makes perigee passes at a height of only 4000 miles. At that range it is about magnitude 9 or 10. These objects are affected by lunar and solar gravity, so generating predictions is not simple for a time period more than a week or two. Here is a "current" elset generated by my int3 program from an elset determined by observations: 1 03956U 69046F 06078.00000116 .00000000 00000-0 00000-0 0 00 2 03956 25.1524 325.5258 8183497 161.2318 27.1852 0.46184855 02 Mike McCants ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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