For the next month or more, the unknown object 90006 will be making good northbound passes over North America. It is an interesting specular flasher with a flash period of about 10.5 seconds with maxima up to about +6 (except for those near its perigee in the far southern hemisphere). The problem is, to my knowledge it hasn't been observed in 286 days or more. Not to worry! Mike McCants wrote a program called Int2 that calculates estimated elements forward into time from the last observation. I'm not sure how much it can reduce the error between predicted and actual positions, but it can be a lot. A couple of months ago using Int2 elements I was able to find a similar object, 90004 (formerly 90907), after it had not been seen for quite a long time. Object 90006, like 90004, can be seen on occasion with handheld 10x50 binoculars, but mounted binoculars or low-power telescope (wide field of view) would be strongly recommended. So, all of that being said, for anyone who might like to search for 90006, here are some Int2-generated elements at 2-day intervals: 90006 1 90006U 00596A 02313.69405735 .00000354 00000-0 00000+0 0 07 2 90006 62.7725 5.6945 7472997 280.7840 .0000 2.00620311 04 90006 1 90006U 00596A 02315.68786639 .00000359 00000-0 00000+0 0 08 2 90006 62.7761 5.3580 7472660 280.8126 .0000 2.00621733 00 90006 1 90006U 00596A 02317.68166119 .00000362 00000-0 00000+0 0 09 2 90006 62.7786 5.0307 7471778 280.8298 .0000 2.00623170 07 90006 1 90006U 00596A 02319.67544168 .00000365 00000-0 00000+0 0 07 2 90006 62.7791 4.7093 7471282 280.8382 .0000 2.00624619 04 I didn't get to see Superbird A tonight due to an astronomy club meeting. I continue to wonder why astronomers hold indoor club meetings on clear, moonless evenings. 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://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Nov 09 2002 - 02:28:13 EST