Flaring geosats seen last night (25 September UTC/24 September CDT) using my handheld 8x42 binoculars: 1. 25954, 99-060A, GE 4 2. 28446, 04-041A, AMC 15 3. 26038, 99-071A, Galaxy 11 (probable, based on past obs) 4. 26624, 00-076A, Anik F1 5. 23192, 94-047A, DirecTV 2 (DBS 2) or 25937, 99-056A, DirecTV 1R 6. 26761, 01-018A, XM 1 (about 30 seconds west of XM 2) 7. 27624, 01-012A, XM 2 (about 30 seconds east of XM 1) XM 1 and XM 2 were at least +7.5 and were visible about 1/8 degree apart from each other for quite a while. I timed their separation with my stopwatch and twice got just over 31 seconds. I can not determine which one was #5 above due to an imprecise time -- I wrote down only "3:50" -- no seconds. Maybe the safer bet is the newer one? All of the above were seen at the "three hours early" position in the sky -- i.e., about three hours before shadow entry time. This is about 45 degrees of sky before shadow entry. I didn't see any at the actual shadow-entry position; it may still be a few nights early for those. With the telescope Mike found two more very near GE 4. More information about "flaring geosats" (not to be confused with "flashing geosynchs"). I'll venture that "flaring" is due to changing Sun-satellite-observer geometry, while "flashing" is due to a satellite rotating about its own axis either due to tumbling out of control or due to being spin-stabilized. Also, flaring geosats are operational payloads, while flashing geosynchs are not operational and most are not truly geosynchronous but are slowly drifting around the world, over a period of months. LES 8 has now gone into twilight here. Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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