At 11:48 01/09/99 -0700, Matson, Robert wrote: >Excellent job, Malcolm! > >Based on your description, it sounds like you acquired Superbird >pretty close to its peak, but missed the ramp-up prior. Yes, it would seem so, but I am rather astonished as to how I could have missed it ! I had eta just outside fov to the right theta at top, and zeta-chi was a bit further out of fov to the left. So apart from scans to the left to view zeta-chi and to the right to check on below eta, I had the right area in view most of the time between 0310 and that first flash. Astounded I am! Fatigue I expect, as I had allowed myself too long an 'uncertainty' period prior to the prediction. But at least the more experienced chappies can now take over without suffering too much 'binocular elbow' through waiting too long ! I am also astonished because I *did* pick up two serendipitious satellite intruders during the watch! One was well before the first flash and entered the field from the top right and exited bottom left, just about occulting tau on its way through. The second one was a few minutes after the last flash ( while I was still checking the field for further Superbird activity). This last one entered from the bottom (south) of the field and climbed rapidly vertically a fraction to the right of zeta-chi. I didnt take time out to time them, as that was not the business at hand ! I didn't want to miss any of the main event! However, this evening/night is cloudy and I have been learning more how to drive Skymap. If I am driving this thing correctly it turns out that the first intruder was Cosmos 1048 r at 03:24/03:25 and the second one was Cosmos 1515 r at 3:42/3:43. ** tles below So that neatly brackets what I was seeing. Quite exciting really, I wonder what is the probability of getting 3 sats all in the same field of view of 10x50s in a 20 minute period ? In the excitement of it all I clean forgot to watch for Mir ! >assume you were seeing flashes once very 11.5 seconds or so >initially, but only once every 23 seconds toward the end. No,not quite. By counting in my head " a thousandandone thousandandtwo" etc I had 11 to 13 each time. Apart from some 'lost' time in the middle ( when I tried, unsuccesfully, to time the flashes by my clock ) they were all about that same period apart. Eventually, on one occasion, when I counted to 20 and there was no flash I looked away to the clock and noted the time as a possible end point. So I may have missed a last flash at 23 but only the one because I continued to watch the area for several minutes afterwards , even after the Cosmos 1515r event. After seeing nothing more I 'upgraded' my possible end timing to an actual end :-!) went indoors, typed up my prelim. and went to bed ! ** Cosmos 1048 r 7.4 2.4 0.0 5.5 v 10.5 803 x 753 km 1 11112U 78105B 99244.04567628 .00000391 00000-0 14776-3 0 6744 2 11112 74.0286 221.4928 0035412 156.7764 203.4999 14.34147950 86822 Cosmos 1515 r 7.4 2.4 0.0 5.5 v 6.48 646 x 621 km 1 14552U 83122B 99243.87621735 .00000800 00000-0 10582-3 0 2742 2 14552 82.5234 24.9341 0017914 299.0801 60.8618 14.78689345846728 ** It is now 03:15 local, the clouds have got thicker, to the extent that I can not see to the end of my garden, so I think early to bed is indicated as there is not going to be any viewing of Superbird or anything else tonight :-!( Malcolm.