Re: Strange Object

Craig Cholar (3432P@VM1.CC.NPS.NAVY.MIL)
Fri, 28 Nov 97 19:23:01 PST

Brian Webb said:
>I saw a strange object this evening while I was using my telescope. The
>looked like a satellite, but was going from east to west. Here are the
>particulars:
>
>Date (UTC): 97 NOV 29
>Time (UTC): 02:17 (right after the end of astronomical twilight)
>Location: Thousand Oaks, California
>Latitude: 34 deg 13 min 30 sec N
>Longitude: 118 deg 53 min 47 sec W

What Brian saw was OVI 1-5, one of the objects in retrograde orbits.
Most, if not all, are pretty small because of the huge penalty of
lifting something without the benefit of the earth's 'push'.

>I have 18 months of experience observing satellites, but I've never seen
>anything like this.

If you want to see more retrograde objects, run predictions for
elsets with inclinations > 90.  OV 1-5's inclination is 144.6346 !

OV 1-5           1.4  0.7  0.0  6.2 v            1053 x 982
1 02122U 66025B   97330.21957526  .00000293  00000-0  45756-4 0  5312
2 02122 144.6346  87.9376 0047512 181.2864 178.7681 13.64989613579274
        --------

To make it easier to find the retrograde objects, a TLE
manipulation program can sort an elset file by certain
attributes, such as inclination.  TLEMOP (for MS-DOS) is one
that I use for this purpose.  It can be found at:

   ftp://ftp.satellite.eu.org/pub/sat/programs/ibmpc/tlemop1z.zip

 Craig Cholar    3432P@VM1.CC.NPS.NAVY.MIL