John: You recently wrote ... > I was watching for Mir this evening (October 16th) and spotted another > satellite which appeared about 30 seconds before Mir (approx 00:11 UT Oct > 17th). It was travelling on a path from about Elev 30; Az 180 to about Elev > 40; Az 120 with a magnitude of about 2.5 fading to 4.0. This satellite did > not appear on my Quicksat predicted pass list for the evening. I am located > at 80 deg W, 43.89 deg N at an elevation of 487 metres (Southern Ontario, > Canada). I had set Quicksat to look for all sats over magnitude 4.5 using > visual.tle ftp'd on Sunday 15th October from seds at Arizona U. Can anybody > identify this satellite for me? I believe your "unknown" was Lacrosse 1 (19671 = 88-106B). A quicksat run using element set "cs951014" by Ted J. Molczan gave: 43.890 80.000 1598. John Corby ONT 1996 7.0 15 F F T T T *** 1995 Oct 16 Mon evening *** Times are PM EDT *** 1927 643 H M S Tim Al Azi C Dir Mag Dys F Hgt Shd Rng EW Phs R A Dec 19671 Lacrosse 1 18.0 4.5 1.7 c 1.5 8 10 1 .2 25 186 311 3.2 18 5 417 228 821 1.1 83 20 8 -20.6 8 10 34 .2 31 178 306 2.7 18 5 417 197 726 1.2 75 2037 -15.4 8 11 8 .2 37 167 298 2.3 18 5 417 163 647 1.3 65 2113 -8.9 8 11 41 .2 42 152 286 1.9 18 5 417 127 594 1.4 53 2155 -1.0 8 12 15 .2 44 132 C 272 1.6 18 5 417 89 573 1.3 40 2244 7.6 8 12 48 .2 42 112 256 1.6 18 6 417 49 587 1.1 27 2335 15.6 As to its brightness, I've seen it on four different passes and its magnitude was from 0.5 to 1.3 magnitudes fainter than the predicted values. Clear and dark skies! Ed Light