Re: Need help to ID unknown

From: Steve Newcomb (snewcomb@mail2.gcnet.net)
Date: Wed Nov 21 2001 - 00:08:05 EST

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    Sun was at -11.4 degrees, which is dark enough.
    
    Two observations are usually much more conclusive than magnitude:
    1. Direction ('going left' = 270 degrees = 9 o'clock).
    2. Speed, e.g. the time to pass the distance between the tips of your spread
    thumb and index fingers (at straight arm distance) or the same distance as
    between two known stars, or the field-of-view of your binoculars (specify!).
    
    With satbase.tle, I find just one 'going left' Dir=280 degrees within
    predicted mag.limit +16 and +- 3 minutes : #16592 NOSS 7 r, but it is
    predicted at +6 mag and going between Jupiter and delta Geminorum 11:03:50
    (16 seconds for the distance alpha-beta)
    
    > >
    > > At 11:03:20 UTC 1/2 way between Jupiter and Pollux and Castor going left
    3
    > > mag. Seen at Lat. 39.47 Lon. -79.34 Elv. 784 m. I have not been able to
    ID
    > > searching mccants.tle and alldat.tle using Findsat. I would like to ID
    this,
    > > it was seen under dark skies on Nov. 18, 2001 during the meteor shower
    of I
    > > believe 2500 per hour average at times. I made note of time and location
    > > because meteors were slowing down at this time.
    >
    > Is that time right? I thought it was starting to get light around then
    
    The time is correct and excuse my less than perfect description. I saw 2
    other sats earlier but did not record time or position, I was to busy
    watching an incredible display. Under what were perfect skies with LM 6.5
    and cold 20 degree Fahrenheit set up at 9.00 UTC with 2 cameras, extra
    batteries and film, sleeping bag, reclining chairs, food and water, red
    flash lights, then decided it was to cold to get in and out of bag and put
    plastic over cameras. I could not stand missing the meteor shower while
    attempting to photograph something I had never tried before. I had seen
    streaks from the time I went outside at 8:45 UTC to set up cameras. I had
    hoped for an Iridium flare or the ISS to pass but none were predicted. All
    observations that night were naked eye. At one point there was a burst of at
    least 10 meteor streaks at the same instant while looking up near zenith and
    they appeared to be almost in all directions. Saw 1 fireball that was a
    sporadic, not from the radiant. I was not doing a precise count but several
    random times counted as many as 20 in a 10 second period, but then there
    would maybe be a little break with only 1 every 5 seconds. Many times had 3
    at same time in sky. If there was 10 seconds without seeing one it was a
    long time. Peak time was from 10:10:00 UTC to 10:35:00 UTC, but the hour
    before was still more than I had ever seen before. It was fun, but I still
    have not ID the sat so I can post this extraordinary night into my records.
    The sat was moving approx. .4 degree per second heading south east from 256
    az  59 el . Watch set on the internet at time.gov, so +-10seconds on time.
    Most of the time I can ID sats with Findsat if viewed naked eye.
    
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