Re: yaogan 6 tumble

From: Frank Reed via Seesat-l <seesat-l_at_satobs.org>
Date: 14 May 2015 20:22:45 -0700
It's the most entertaining satellite I've seen in quite some time. I tracked Yaogan 6 with binoculars for several minutes on a pass over southern New England about half an hour ago. Tristan Cools mentioned a period of 0.6 seconds. I think this may be the quarter period of the actual rotation. I saw a pattern of "pause, flash, flash, flash" with a total period of about 2.5 seconds and a steady "rhythm" of the actual flashes (the time between the flashes would match that 0.6s value). As it crossed the sky, the relative intensity of the three flashes changed. For several periods, there were flashes of magnitude 1 and brighter. One especially bright flash struck me as brighter than magnitude -1, but that's hard to judge. Many flashes were around magnitude 2.5.

Frank Reed
Conanicut Island USA
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Received on Thu May 14 2015 - 22:23:48 UTC

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