I was able to see quite a few flaring geosats last night. Identifying them by the positions I get with 10x50 binoculars is somewhat tedious, so after two or three hours I've got this partial list of the ones I was able to see last night (some at two or three different positions): 23536, 95-016A, Brazilsat B2 24315, 96-054A, GE 1 24713, 97-002A, GE 2 24936, 97-050A, GE 3 25152, 98-006A, Brazilsat B3 26038, 99-071A, Galaxy 11 26469, 00-046A, Brazilsat B4 26608, 00-072A, PAS 1R 26761, 01-108A, XM-1 (a.k.a. "XM-Rock", I think) two of these three close ones (sorted east to west): 23764, 96-002A, PAS 3R 25585, 98-075A, PAS 6B (slightly out of plane) 24891, 97-040A, PAS 6 one of these two close ones: 20872, 90-091A, SBS 6, or 20873, 90-091B, Galaxy 6 BCRC observing site: 30.315N, 97.866W, 280m I see them before shadow entry in various places in a range from about RA 20:20 to 00:35. I saw two much later after shadow exit around RA 1:45. The zero-inclination declination from here is in a range from about -4.5 near the horizon to about -5.0 near the meridian. I got to see a few more much fainter ones in Mike McCants' telescope. Also, in the telescope the Brazilsats appear to vary. They are spin-stabilized, apparently 3.6 meters diameter, 8.4 meters height deployed; source: http://www.tbs-satellite.com/tse/online/prog_brasilsat_b_car.html I'm not sure if it should be possible to see them with binoculars, but Mike confirmed with his telescope that some of them were at least +7.5. Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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