Re: NOAA 15, ETS 6, Cosmos 2228, SPOT 3?, Irid 11A

Björn Gimle (b_gimle@algonet.se)
Fri, 16 Apr 1999 22:47:16 +0200

On 7 januari 1999 11:22, Ed Cannon wrote:
>...
>Now, has anyone in the southern hemisphere seen anything 
>recently from SPOT 3 (22823, 93-61A)?  A few months ago on
>most passes over here it did great flashes, some of them 
>being some of the brightest I've seen -- rivals of good 
>Iridium flares in magnitude.  The flashes were seen as it 
...

Well, I'm not in the southern hemisphere, and it's not January,
but I accidentally found it flashing wildly and irregularly.
Average period 3.5 seconds, but some intervals around 2 sec.
Best flash about -3m at 19:24:24 UT, next good one (+0m?)
at 19:24:40
Spot 3           4.7  1.8  1.8  6.0 d
1 22823U 93061A   99102.13589910 -.00000043 +00000-0 +00000-0 0 09441 
2 22823 098.6445 169.6933 0014589 324.1042 035.9152 14.17164048287003 

Quite a lot of clouds, so I missed USA 129, Landsat 7+UNK, NOSS SSU...
But USA 86 flared through thin clouds to mag +1 at 19:45:27 UT, above
right from Capella, roughly where I saw a similar flare on Apr.14, but
the -3m flare above theta Aur was not repeated today.

Clouds also ruined my orbit 1 try for Landsat 7. I got Ron's launch
confirmation before going out, but only Cassiopeia, where it was
to descend, was occasionally visible.


-- bjorn@tt-tech.se (office)  b_gimle@algonet.se (home)      --
--                            http://www.algonet.se/~b_gimle --
-- COSPAR 5918, 59.298 N, 18.102 E, 55 m                     --
-- SeeSat-L / Visual Satellite Observer Home Page found at   --
-- http://www.satellite.eu.org/satintro.html       --