Mir and 96 23B Obs Together
Jim Varney (jvarney@mail2.quiknet.com)
Fri, 26 Apr 1996 22:17:05 -0700
A little excitement here. I went out to watch Mir rise over my northwestern
horizon, when I noticed that it was being followed by another object. The
unknown was in a different plane, a couple of degrees to the east of Mir.
By the time Mir had risen to 45 degrees altitude, the object had caught up
to Mir and overtook it! Near my east-west meridian the object ducked into
shadow. Mir hit shadow much later and lower in the south.
Turns out I did not have the Priorda rocket body TLE's in my TLE set.
After running those, I can confirm that I saw 23849 (96 23B) Priorda R/B
at 0416 UT 4/27/96. It was about mag 1. Mir was brilliant and did not have
as much bronze tint as I've seen before.
Anyway, without knowing about the Priorda R/B, you can imagine my reaction
watching something overtake Mir... "what's going on here!?" This is the
first time I have seen an object with a mean motion greater than 16.
-- Jim
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Jim Varney | 121^ 23' 54" W, 38^ 27' 28" N | Sacramento, CA
Civil Engineer | Elev. 31 ft. |jvarney@mail2.quiknet.com
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