Ideas on this third-party UNID report?
Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Fri, 03 Oct 1997 01:56:58 -0400
Wednesday evening one of the professors in the department where I
work, and his wife, were looking for the Mir/STS-86 pass but looked
towards Venus instead of Jupiter and missed it. However, he told
me that just a couple of minutes later than I had told him for
Mir/STS-86, he observed in binoculars for several minutes a very
bright tumbling satellite that went from southwest to northwest.
When he first mentioned it to me, he thought it had been Mir/STS-86.
(I think his wife was also observing in binoculars.)
So I ran Quicksat to mag. 5.5 predictions to see what he might
have seen. The only thing that seems to match time, direction,
and motion appears to be Cosmos 372 Rk (70-86B, 04589). In the
PPAS online it's recorded as having been a flasher years ago. Has
anyone observed it doing any significant flashing recently?
Mir/STS-86 culminated at 1:13:25 UTC on Oct. 2, alt. 48, azi. 133
(RA 21:23, Dec. -1.7). Cosmos 372 Rk culminated at 1:14:51, alt.
55, azi. 290 (RA 16:39, Dec. 36.2). Its predicted magnitude was
+4.9 at culmination, and Quicksat phase was 110. Could it possibly
have been that one the professor observed? He was certain that it
was a very bright, tumbling object. He said its flashes were
brighter than any stars around. He estimated the period to be 2
seconds. (I didn't find any DMSPs near the time and directions he
described!) His location was very close to the BCRC Austin location,
which is 31.314N, 97.866W, 279m.
Thanks for any assistance on this. He's interested in knowing what
they saw -- and so am I. (Some minutes earlier they saw a faint one
going south....)
Ed Cannon
ecannon@mail.utexas.edu
Austin, Texas, USA