I posted yesterday: >I was fortunate to find the DSP 23 Centaur rocket last night >under clear and dark skies. It was fainter than expected - >tumbling about once a second to about magnitude 11.5 or 12. I was suprised to find this object flashing to magnitude 6 or 7 every 2.5 seconds last night about 01:00 UT. Obviously what I saw the previous night was the payload, not the rocket. Elset: USA 197 1 32287U 07054A 07316.90125814 0.00000000 00000-0 00000-0 0 08 2 32287 3.9960 273.0867 0001000 180.0004 179.9996 0.99726600 07 I could not search for the USA 197 Centaur very long because the cirrus clouds got much thicker. I have 3 guesses for search orbits: USA 197 Cn r 1 32288U 07054B 07315.37712839 0.00000000 00000-0 00000-0 0 08 2 32288 4.0000 272.0000 0050000 174.0000 0.0000 0.98000000 04 USA 197 Cn r 1 32288U 07054B 07315.37600223 0.00000000 00000-0 00000-0 0 01 2 32288 4.3000 271.6000 0030000 174.0000 0.0000 0.99000000 01 USA 197 Cn r 1 32288U 07054B 07315.37599992 0.00000000 00000-0 00000-0 0 01 2 32288 4.5000 271.6000 0001000 174.0000 0.0000 1.00000000 04 I hope this will give a reasonable search range. DSP observational details (all times Nov. 13 UT): Altitude 58, azimuth 192, range 23000 miles BCRC (30.3N, 97.9W) 01:00 DSP 23 flashing to magnitude 6 or 7 every 2.5 seconds. Flashes were visible in 12x80 telescope. 01:10 flashes to magnitude 8 every 2.5 seconds. 01:15 flashes to magnitude 9 01:27 flashes to magnitude 9 every 10 seconds. 01:36 same as 01:27. There were then some passing clouds and the DSP was not seen after that. Of course such bright flashes from a DSP require a certain sun-satellite- observer angle. In this case, the angle was approximately 90 degrees. Mike McCants Austin, TX ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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