Trouble spotting NOAA 4 (7529, 74-089 A)
3432P@VM1.CC.NPS.NAVY.MIL
Thu, 2 Oct 97 17:51:38 PDT
I've been trying to add NOAA 4 (7529, 74-089 A) to my list of observed
satellites for a month or so now; Nothing observed out of about 7 tries.
If the RCS is really around 8.4 sq. meters, as I believe it is, I
don't understand why I haven't been able to pick it up with my 4.5
in. telescope at 40x. I know that it is in a sun synchronous orbit,
hugging the terminator, so that prevents me from seeing it in totally
dark skies, and I'll never see it front-lit. Still, the orbit is
high enough to allow me to see it in reasonably dark skies. I've
seen much smaller objects under worse lighting and distance situations.
Has anyone seen NOAA 4? It isn't in the Molczan file. I got this
from OIG today...
NOAA 4
1 07529U 74089A 97275.06853986 -.00000031 +00000-0 +10000-3 0 08062
2 07529 102.0108 288.0159 0009308 271.4900 088.5104 12.52952110046467
FYI: Here are the NOAA objects I've seen. The second column is the
number of passes.
04793 1 70 106A NOAA 1
04794 2 70 106B NOAA 1 Rk
06235 1 72 82A NOAA 2
06237 1 72 82C NOAA 2 Rk
06920 1 73 86A NOAA 3
07017 2 73 86H NOAA 3 Db
07025 1 73 86R NOAA 3 Rk R
12532 2 76 77DL NOAA 5 Db
12553 42 81 59A NOAA 7
13923 3 83 22A NOAA 8
15427 3 84 123A NOAA 9
16969 1 86 73A NOAA 10
19531 2 88 89A NOAA 11
21263 18 91 32A NOAA 12
22739 3 93 50A NOAA 13
23455 3 94 89A NOAA 14
Craig Cholar 3432P@VM1.CC.NPS.NAVY.MIL
Marina, California
36 41 10.3N, 121 48 17.9W (36.6862, -121.8050) UTC -7