Obs for the Last Few Days

Mir16609@aol.com
Fri, 9 Apr 1999 22:57:04 EDT

Hello Everyone.

Evening of 5 April:
Iridium 24 gave a series of flashes centered at 02:32:02 UTC, 6 April
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Evening of 6 April:
The Mir made a spectacular pass, reaching -2 mag as it passed through the top 
of the Big Dipper (45az, 57 el.).

Landsat 4 flared to a 0 mag for 32 seconds beginning at 00:47:00 UTC, 7 
April.  It was a typical northbound low elevation (20 deg) flare in the NNE.  
 
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Evening of 7 April:
The Mir was a 0 mag as it passes over Orion's belt at 00:50 UTC, 8 April.  It 
reached -2 as it passed over Sirius (215az, 35el) less than a minute later.

Celestis 2 (aka Taurus Rk, 25160) made a nice pass at a 7.0 mag.  As it 
passed directly overhead at 01:10:18 UTC, 8 April, it crossed with an UNID, 
later found to be Cosmos 2038 Rk (20238).

Landsat 4 flared to a 0 mag from 01:28:51 to 01:28:55 UTC as it was 
descending above Polaris (el 50).  

NOAA 2 Rk (06237) was an UNID just above beta-Dra at 02:11:08 UTC 8 April as 
I was waiting for my first obs of ADEOS for the year.  

Cosmos 2242 flared to a 0 mag as it passed directly overhead at 01:34:12 UTC, 
8 April.

Observed Superbird A flashes from 03:32:24 to 03:37:48.  I clearly began 
observing too late to note the actual start time of the flashes.   PPAS 
format in the works.
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Evening of 8 April:
TIPS was on time per the NRL elset.  It passed R->L about 1 degree under 
beta-Gem at 01:33:25.5 UTC 9 April.  It was about a 7.0 mag.  

Observed Landsat 5 exit from eclipse at 02:25:10 just above Polaris.   It 
flared to a 0 mag from 02:25:37 to 02:25:42 as it descended below Polaris.

Observed Superbird A flashes from 03:31:47 to 03:39:18.   PPAS format in the 
works.

Cheers
Don Gardner  39.1796 N, 76.8419 W, 34m ASL
Homepage: http://hometown.aol.com/mir16609/
Space Day - 6 May 1999; http://www.spaceday.com/