I intended to try to confirm whether or not a bright flashing geosynch last Saturday evening was either ASC 1 or Italsat 1. I did see a bright flashing geosynch, but it turned out that due to a one-hour mistake in RA (interpolated in my head on site) I was looking in the wrong place -- but saw Telstar 401 (93-077A, 22927). It was at about RA 00:12-00:22, Dec -12.3 to -12.0 (04:35-45 UTC). The first two or three flashes were very bright (+1 if not brighter). They were occurring every 94+ seconds, but as they got fainter I could only see every other one (189 seconds). Two years ago I wrote that it was flashing about 15 minutes earlier each night: http://satobs.org/seesat/Nov-2003/0192.html Still don't know about the two other satellites that I had intended to try to see. I had thought the Saturday evening one was ASC 1, but Mike found that Italsat 1 was very very near the same position at the same time. Intelsat 512 (85-087A, 16101) was not far away from Telstar 401 earlier tonight, but I didn't see it. Saturday evening Mike got the telescope on it, and it was tumbling with faint maxima about every 15 seconds. It can flash very brightly if you can get the good luck to see it, and its flash period is pretty short (for a flashing geosynch). I started to watch Gorizont 23 (91-046A, 21533), but very soon the session was ended by clouds. Gorizont 23's flash period a few nights ago was 63+ seconds. 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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