Matt Fawcett wrote regarding USA 32: > I've never seen anything like it. No way of determining any > kind of pattern for such rapid flashes. Unusual behaviour - > well worth checking this object out. I wonder what part of > the structure is causing this behaviour - is USA 32 tumbling? First, let me mention that USA 81 does the same thing as USA 32. Here are their identifications: USA 32, 19460, 88-078A USA 81, 21949, 92-023A Here are four informative messages about them in the SeeSat-L archives (first three from one thread; fourth one stand-alone): http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/May-1997/0183.html http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/May-1997/0185.html http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/May-1997/0189.html http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/Mar-1998/0268.html I first learned about their behavior from Mike McCants, and in quite a few observations have concluded that the wild sparkling that they do is probably predictable, like a "flare" -- but one produced by a (rapidly) rotating multifaceted reflector. So I think a concerted effort to gather observations might produce a means of at least saying something like, "On such-and-such type of a pass, you can expect the bright sparkling at such-and-such a point during the pass." Mike pointed out to me long ago, and it still seems fully accurate, that they glitter or sparkle most brightly at least when south of us, after culmination. It may be that they have other consistent sparkle times as well. 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 May 25 2001 - 17:21:13 PDT