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
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