DSP 23 and DSP 23 Centaur

From: Mike McCants (mmccants@io.com)
Date: Tue Nov 13 2007 - 18:05:09 UTC

  • Next message: Randy John: "RE: Spectacular DSP 23 "comet" imagery!"

    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
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Nov 13 2007 - 18:09:43 UTC