Saturday evening when I looked up to get oriented to look for Topex (92-052A, 22076), what I saw was that the Summer Triangle (Vega, Altair, Deneb) had become the "Summer Quadrilateral", with the southeast corner the brightest of all, about -1. Then I could see that the fourth one was northbound. It was Topex. This was about 2:26:30 November 7 UTC. After some seconds it dimmed. Here are some PPAS reports from November 6 and 7 UTC: 13923, NOAA 8 83- 22 A 04-11-06 00:42:12 EC 72.8 0.3 28 2.60 22788, UFO 2 Rk 93- 56 B 04-11-06 01:13:23 EC 155.4 0.3 18 8.64 +3.5->i 28096, NOSS 3-2 Rk -- tricky one, but it was doing a distinct specular flash. 03- 54 B 04-11-06 01:36:43 EC 172.1 0.3 5 34.4 +3.5->i 01863, OV2-3 Transtage 3C Rk (plus payload? -- Note to Dan Deak: this one is a fast flasher.) 65-108 A 04-11-06 01:59:50 EC 5.4 0.2 8 0.67 24914, NOAA 7 Debris F -- very pretty, some of the double maxima seemed like they could have been triples, but they were not bright enough for me to be sure. As I was watching it, another flasher crossed tracks with it; it was Globalstar 23 (99-004A, 25621); observed with 8x42. 81- 59 F 04-11-07 01:16:18 EC 23.0 0.2 9 2.56 double max .25 sec 24799, DFH3 2 Rk -- difficult broad maxima, not sure when to click. 97- 21 B 04-11-07 01:58:16 EC 138.9 4.0 12 11.6 +4.0->i 94-056A, 23230, ETS 6 -- only a few visible without binoculars, at about 3:47:00 plus or minus; many of the maxima were about +4.5 to +5.0. 94- 56 A 04-11-07 03:55:28 EC 744.6 0.2 80 9.307 +2.5->i I have various obs of the MDS-1 H-2 Rk (02-003C, 27369), which is a neat one with two flashes and a tumble every cycle. Also, Iridium 920 (97-034C, 24871) has done some very nice displays, but usually only four or five bright maxima. The only flashing geosynch I've been able to see in the last couple of weeks has been our DSP in the SW, 89-046A, 20066, USA 39, as always at about 4:00 UTC. All of above were from BCRC, 30.315N, 97.866W, 280m. Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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