Re: Unk (Landsat 7?)

Tristan Cools (tcools@nic.INbe.net)
Fri, 16 Apr 1999 23:15:23 +0200 (CEST)

At 22:28 15-04-99 -0600, you wrote:

>
>I looked for Landsat 7 #25682 which was to make a pass 25 minutes later but
>nothing was seen at 1x, not even a flare.
>


With the elements below I observed both Landsat 7 and its rocket.

Landsat 7(99020A) was some 4 minutes late, steady and magnitude 3.5
That's probably the reason why you missed it.  It is probably ajusting its
orbit, so elements aren't very reliable.

99020B was on time but it was difficult to observe form my garden, and
viewing opportunities were bad(low in the West).  I only saw it for a few
seconds.  Maybe it was flashing with 5s.(just a guess).  


Landsat 7                                        698 x 669 km
1 25682U 99020A   99106.70303473 -.00005872  00000-0 -11354-2 0    42
2 25682  98.2243 175.2137 0020469 182.0067 178.1027 14.62942429   137
99020B                                           711 x 185 km
1 25683U 99020B   99106.53026626  .00568309  78452-5  66567-3 0    29
2 25683 107.5837 169.1035 0385442 330.6038  27.3971 15.39514041   115



25653/99012E the Globalstar Soyuz rocket is a very nice naked eye object(mag
+2) with a flash period of 1.81s.
Optical characteristics look a bit like the Zenit second stages.  There is
one invisible minimum after two maxima.


Greetings,
Tristan Cools
tcools@nic.INbe.net
BWGS Member - Belgian Working Group Satellites

Observing at:

Damse Vaart: 3.2486E/51.2279N
Ryckevelde: 3.2867E/51.2054N
Brugge: 3.1611E/51.2108N