Re: Orbit and identity changes

Marco Hahn FS (mhahn@ra.abo.fi)
Mon, 6 Oct 1997 10:38:44 +0300 (EET DST)

P>An earlier report mentioned that Faisat was steady, so I didn't bother =
to report Saturday's steady pass.  Perhaps Faisat was tumbling after all,=
 and myself and others were looking at the wrong object.  I'll try to loo=
k at both again tonight.

I have a really early observation of two objects related to the Faisat la=
unch, however, I don't know which they are and whether Faisat and rocket =
body were already seperated at that time (Faisat was a piggyback payload,=
 wasn't it?):

>were on the same orbit parallel to a line through SAO #8220 and SAO #810=
2, seperated by about 3s. The first one was brighter than the second one,=
 and flashing with roughly a 5s period, maxima at roughly 1m5 (brighter t=
han Polaris). The track on the sky fit nicely with the prediction from th=
e elset above.

>Position was RA 15h17m, Decl. 71d50'.
>Times: 18:28:10 UTC and 18:28:13 UTC according to my clock, which ...
... was off up to 7 seconds at that time.

Using elsets, I identified the "first one" as 97 52C, and "the second one=
" as 97 52A.

I reported this to Eric Rosenberg but never got any reply. BTW, was this =
the first observation of Faisat or not?

Hej d=E5, Marco