A while ago after getting home from BCRC, I observed ETS 6 flashes for about an hour. Its range went from about 38,400 km to over 40,500 km, and I think that the brightest flashes were at least +3.5. I was just outside my apartment, where the light pollution is pretty bad. I think from a better site the brightest ones might have been visible without binoculars, but they are so quick, I think that makes it trickier. The sky was very clear. At the time, the Moon was well up. The flashes grew gradually fainter throughout the observation period, so that at the end some were only +6.5, if that. I stopped due to them getting so faint, plus I was out of stopwatch clicks. PPAS report: 94- 56 A 02-09-27 07:01:16 EC 3387.2 0.2 358 9.462 +3.5->inv Observing site, my apartment: 30.309N, 97.728W, 150m. Unfortunately I was in my car en route to the BCRC site when the Soyuz Rk (27532) went over. A Progress (27454?, pass at about 1:33-1:35) was visible without binoculars for much of the pass. Its brightness varied irregularly, slowly; I guess that was due to phase-angle effects. ISS pass was very nice. Running out of chances to see 97-068B (25035, USA 136 Rk, a rapidly tumbling Centaur in a very eccentric orbit) from here. However, once the tropical weather (Isidore) is out of the way (Hope all under it are well!), it will be pretty well placed for east of here for a few more nights. It was pretty easy to see with my 10x50s in the last few minutes before it went into Earth's shadow. Mike McCants fit six geosats into 0.6 degree field of view (8-inch/200mm dob, between 85x and 90x). I'm pretty sure they were, from east to west, 23598, 23192, 25937, 23553, 25954, and 26985. 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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Sep 27 2002 - 05:16:19 EDT