Ted Molczan's very interesting investigation and analysis of the Moroccan event on September 19, 1976 shows that the decay of 1976-074C (#09051) could be highly probably the culprit. NORAD`s SDC reported the decay on September 18, 20 UT. A semi-analytic approach based on 5 ELSETs shows a possible decay around 01:30 UT on September 19. A more sophisticated procedure - SP-theory with numerical integration - confirms in general Ted's results. The time window of the decay opened around September 19 01:19:00 UT (object altitude 78.4 km) and closed 01:22:12 UTC (altitude 27.3 km start vertical descent) The reentry ephemerides are archived: http://satobs.org/seesat_ref/76074C/1976-074C_trajectory_H.Zimmer.txt The reentry orbital elements are archived: http://satobs.org/seesat_ref/76074C/1976-074C_Orbital_Elements_H.Zimmer.txt The visibility for all observation points were in agreement with Ted's calculations but my program delivers significantly higher altitudes above the horizon. As an example 3 points are given: Agadir 01:19:00 UT 68.95° (Ted 18°) Az 304.12° Casablanca 01:20:00 73.51° ( 20°) 283.63° Fez Region 01:20:24 15.37° ( 10°) 287.76° Harro Harro Zimmer - Berlin, Germany _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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