Marco Langbroek wrote: > I might have done a chance observation of an (uncatalogued) > piece of USA 193 debris this evening. > > I was observing a field centered near RA 15:00, dec +76 45' > through which Lacrosse 3 (97-064A) would pass at 19:46:30 UTC > (March 7). Instrument: Meade ETX-70 (7cm/F5 refractor) at > 13.6x, FOV about 4 degrees. > > Suddenly a very fast object object of about mag +7.5 moved > west-east through the FOV somewhat south of the 97-064A > trajectory and more or less parallel to it. It was very fast, > maybe going as fast as 1.5 degree/second, and it catched me > completely unaware. I therefore cannot give a very accurate > time, buth with an uncertainty of 10-20 seconds or so it was > about 19:46:00 UTC. In IOD (but please note the time uncertainty): > > 99999 08 999A 4353 G 20080307194600000 17 75 1511063+756260 36 S > > It doesn't match any known object, but the general direction > of movement matches that of USA 193 debris and the speed is > another reason to think of a potential piece of USA 193 debris. The plane of the USA 193 debris cloud is too far from the plane of Lacrosse 3 to account for your observation. Nor does any other object known to us, but there is a lot of debris in orbit that is not in the public catalogue, because it cannot be correlated with a parent object/launch. Ted Molczan ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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