RE: NROL-28 FUEL DUMP?

From: Ted Molczan (ssl3molcz@rogers.com)
Date: Thu Mar 13 2008 - 15:10:50 UTC

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    Tony Beresford wrote:
    
    > It seems the fuel dump for the Centaur upper stage was seen 
    > from Bejing.
    > Here are some reports by Hang Muen from the Bejing planetarium.
    > Posted on the Comet-Obs  list.
    > 
    > Yiran Wu (39.979deg N, 116.299deg E, northwest suburb of Beijing)
    > found the object in Aries by naked-eye and immediately reported to me
    > at 11:21 UT (hereafter). Her estimation of total magnitude is
    > about -2 ("somewhat bighter than Sirius").
    > I myself (39.883deg N, 116.617deg E) saw the object with a 12x60
    > binocular. The object had a typical cometary apperance with a
    > slightly curved tail towards SE-E, at 11:24. Core magnitude was about
    > +0.5, total magnitude about -1.5.
    > Hongbin Li at Xinglong Station, NAOC (40.396deg N, 117.578deg E,
    > mountain top; MPC code: 327) asked me via internet if there is a very
    > bright comet in the western sky at 11:34. But he said that he found
    > that object about 20min earlier.
    > The 0.8-m Tsinghua-NAOC telescope had pointed in turn to 179P and
    > 150P since 11:40, but found it was neither of them.
    > Yiran Wu reported the object, especially the core, was rapidly
    > fading, at 11:43. And could no longer found it since ~11:59. Hongbin
    > Li also found the object was expanding, decaying and slowly moving
    > toward the north, and finally disappeared to naked-eye at 12:14, near
    > 382 Per.
    
    I cannot find 382 Per in any of my references. I would appreciate its RA and
    Dec, from anyone who can look it up.
    
    Thank you,
    Ted Molczan
    
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