This is futile, but I'll report it anyway. I was scanning the Clarke belt area for flaring geosats and saw a fairly brightly flashing object moving from NW to SE. Findsat does not yield any candidates with the full catalog or classfd.tle files. The object's brightest flashes were about +4.0 magnitude, but the maxima were trending generally fainter as it went to the SE. But also the maxima were cycling from brighter to fainter to brighter (not easy to explain). Timings: start: 3:41:32 Sept 26 UTC -- at about RA 20:58, Dec -4.5 (2000) 5.61, 4.15, 5.58, 4.64, 5.21, 10.05, 14.25, 39.05, 6.81, 2.98, 6.78, 31.10, 9.21, 8.69 end: 3:44:06 -- about RA 21:16, Dec -7 (+/- a degree or two?) I looked at my sky chart a couple of times, and when I looked back for it after the second time, I couldn't see it anymore. I think it may have gone into the Earth's shadow. Flaring geosats. The sky wasn't quite as nice as the previous evening. I was only about to see three of the seven that I saw the previous night, plus three others that were about to enter eclipse. Mike got at least a dozen with the telescope. 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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