Re: Was it ISS?

From: Mir16609@aol.com
Date: Mon May 08 2000 - 06:22:33 PDT

  • Next message: Allen Thomson: "Seeing sats in Time magazine"

    In a message dated 5/8/00 1:43:00 AM EDT, StarliteStella@aol.com writes:
    
    > Hi Friends!  On Friday night, May 5th,  at 9:08 pm PDT, I saw a satellite 
    >  coming from the southwest to northeast, about 80degrees declination, 
    coming 
    >  right above Canine Major and bottom of Gemini, that was of a very large 
    >  magnitude (about Pollux), and moving like the International Space Station. 
     
    >  Am I right?  I am in San Francisco--please help!  Thanks!
    
    The Mir went by at 8:45pm PDT.  The ISS did not have a visible pass on 5/5.  
    Below are 2 candidates that seem to match your description of the pass.  I 
    wouldn't expect either one to reach +2.0 mag although at a dark sky location 
    they may be visible at 1x.
    Cosmos 1249      6.0  2.5  0.0  5.6 d
    1 12319U 81021A   00125.14435291 -.00000007 +00000-0 +71221-4 0 08045
    2 12319 064.9579 145.9298 0040176 143.8911 216.4873 13.86259754972404
    Cosmos 1190 r    7.4  2.4  0.0  5.5 v
    1 11870U 80056B   00125.14013724  .00000474  00000-0  17823-3 0  4170
    2 11870  74.0498 153.0604 0017314 220.6838 139.3014 14.34154306 37311
    
    A large fragment of the Cosmos 2369 rocket was in that area of the sky. 
    Cosmos 2369rDb   3.0  0.0  0.0  5.5 d
    1 26074U 00006D   00128.04200461  .00000176  00000-0  21809-3 0   339
    2 26074  70.9619 138.2683 0217339 313.7494  44.5794 13.68198643 53448
    
    There was, however a DMSP that passed S->N at 9:10pm PDT.  DMSPs can reach 
    negative magnitude.
    DMSP B5D2-7      6.4  1.7  0.0  6.4 v
    1 23233U 94057A   00128.08675864  .00000700  00000-0  37267-3 0    01
    2 23233  98.6360 172.1419 0011000 109.5107 250.4892 14.13426736    04
     
    Cheers
    Don Gardner  39.1799 N, 76.8406 W, 100m ASL
    Homepage: http://hometown.aol.com/mir16609/
    
    -----------------------------------------------------------------
    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 : Mon May 08 2000 - 06:25:54 PDT