Obs ML (4353), 2 Nov 2006: Lacrosse 5 (positions + disappearance trick again)

From: Marco Langbroek (marco.langbroek@wanadoo.nl)
Date: Thu Nov 02 2006 - 15:46:40 EST

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    Obs SatTrackCam Leiden (Cospar 4353), 2 Nov 2006:
    
    28646 05 016A   4353 F 20061102173836100 17 75 1439103+668020 56 S+025 10
    28646 05 016A   4353 F 20061102173846800 17 75 1433190+715090 56 S+025 10
    28646 05 016A   4353 F 20061102173921100 17 75 1228012+860780 56 S+020 10
    28646 05 016A   4353 F 20061102173931800 17 75 0639036+868730 56  +035 10
    
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Method: Canon Digital Ixus 400 + ASTRORECORD astrometric software.
    Camera at manual mode, "10 second" (= 10.7 second) exposure, wide field 
    f2.8/7.41 mm.
    
    What these numbers mean:
    http://www.satobs.org/position/IODformat.html
    
    
    I was  lucky to catch 05-016A during a clearing inbetween strong hail showers - 
    10 minutes later hail was pouring down. A second pass at 19:19 UTC was missed 
    due to cloud cover.
    
    During the imaged pass, 05-016A did its "disappearance trick" again. At about 
    17:39:26 UTC while it sailed below Polaris, it dropped from mag. +2 to +4 in a 
    mere few seconds, after being steady, slowly rising from +2.5 to +2.0 the minute 
    before. I was taking my second exposure as it happened, and it is clearly 
    visible on the image how the brightness drops quickly, see the image at:
    
    http://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2006/11/lacrosse-5-doing-its-tricks-amidst.html
    
    The sat was too faint to be visible at the third image, but I could faintly see 
    it with the naked eye at that time at about mag. +4 or so.
    
    - Marco   :-)
    
    -----
    Dr Marco Langbroek  -  SatTrackCam Leiden, Cospar 4353
    Leiden, the Netherlands. 52.15412 N,  4.49081 E (WGS84), +0 m ASL
    
    SatTrackCam: http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek/satcam.html
    Station (b)log: http://sattrackcam.blogspot.com
    Atom RSS: http://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/atom.xml
    e-mail: sattrackcam@wanadoo.nl
    -----
    
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