NOAA 11 double flare, and other obs.
Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Fri, 03 Oct 1997 00:37:09 -0400
Wednesday night (1 Oct. 1997 local, 2 Oct. 1997 UTC), I copied
NOAA 11 (88-89A, 19531) predictions from Mike's published mag. 5.5
predictions for Austin, since the brighter ones I generated didn't
have anything after 8:45 p.m. CDT (1:45 UTC). I thought, "I won't
see it, but I think it does flash sometimes."
So I was watching where it was supposed to be soon after exiting
from the shadow, and I saw what I believe was NOAA 11 flash to mag.
-1 for a second or so! Then a few seconds later (5 seconds?),
there was another -1 flash! I swear this is true! It soon assumed
its predicted +4.n, because I couldn't see it any more from my poor
location. Here's some data from my first prediction in UTC, with
height, shadow height, and range in km:
Time.... Al Azi R.A._ Dec._ Hgt. Shd Rang Phs (QS)
01:54:03 47 137 21:55 -03.5 0840 096 1090 039 (or 180-39 = 141)
That looks suspiciously like an Iridium flare sky position to me,
but it wasn't one of those. The NOAA 11 elset was 7 days old on
that one. I looked for it again Thursday night but did not see it.
Wednesday night also saw at one-power: Cosmos 2082 Rk (20625,
90-46B), Mir/STS-86 (excellent pass above Jupiter and about that
bright!), Directive 2 Rk (23193, 94-47B -- first prediction was
253 km above the surface [Thanks to Alan Pickup for including its
elements in select.tle.]), Iridium 16 (reported), NOSS 2-3 Rk
(23907, 96-29B), and GRO (21225, 91-27B).
Thursday night saw only: Cosmos 2263 Rk (22803, 93-59B), Mir/STS-86,
and UHF 2 Rk (22788, 93-56B). I'm sure that some of UHF 2 Rk's
maxima are mag. 0!
All of those were see from UT Austin but using some generic Austin
coordinates for the predictions: 30.30N, 97.73W, 182m.
Ed Cannon
ecannon@mail.utexas.edu
Austin, Texas, USA