Last night (May 30 UTC) MSX (23851, 96-024A) did a -4 flare at about 3:53:15.4 UTC, which was north of culmination on a northbound pass to our west. Mike McCants got Ofek 5 and its Shavit launch vehicle (02-025A and B, 27435 and 27436) in his telescope. Neither was very bright; the Shavit, observed in twilight, was tumbling. (I got to see them in the scope. Thanks, Mike! I wasn't able to find them with my 10x50 binoculars.) I got a click on a zero or -1 flash of Raduga 33 (96-010A, 23794) at about 2:22:46.55, and 64.06 seconds later was pretty sure that I saw it do a +3.5 flash. Apparently this was the very end of its bright flashes. A TV reporter, along with a photojournalist, from Houston, Texas, met us and followed us to the BCRC site, and there they interviewed Mike about satellite observing. They were from KPRC-TV2, an NBC affiliate, I believe. The story may or may not get on the air, but at least there's a possibility. Mike showed them some satellites with his telescope, and right as they were leaving, they got to see a -2 flare of Iridium 26. There was quite a bit of thin cloud around, but at least it did not get overcast. 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/sat/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 30 2002 - 05:58:39 EDT