Gerhard HOLTKAMP Darmstadt, Germany This is a request for observers in Southern Florida and Central Mexico. XMM (1999-066A) and Integral (2002-048A) are two large European astronomy satellites (for X-Ray and Gamma Ray respectively) on highly eccentric orbits. With a period of 2 days (XMM) and 3 days (Integral) their relative positions repeat every 6 (sidereal) days. Every third time when close to its perigee XMM appears close to Integral in the sky as viewed from the Southern tip of Florida. The next three such events are 17-APR-2005 6:28 UT 23-APR-2005 6:04 UT 29-APR-2005 5:40 UT The position in the sky is about RA 14h22m, Dec 56°40'. (The exact position depends on the observer's location). There are some guys at the European Space Operations Centre which might appreciate a joint picture of their beloved satellites! The event of 23-APR-2005 is particularly interesting as XMM's American counterpart, NASA'S Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO - 1999-040B ) will joint the European encounter within little over a degree. If you manage a two degree field-of-view and can handle magnitudes down to about mag 16 you can document the tripple encounter (and probably get your picture published in the likes of Sky and Telescope). XMM has been reported as mag 9 or brighter close to its perigee. I don't have data on Integral or CXO but they are both far out close to their apogee at the time. A fair guess would be mag 15. The apparent speed across the sky during the encounter is 0.87°/min (XMM), 57 arcsec/min (Integral), 102 arcsec/min (CXO). The best place (theoretically) would be Key West but anywhere South of Miami the relative distance between XMM and Integral drops below 0.5°. (At the 27-th parallel the distance increases to about 1°). But with a 2° FOV Central Florida would be acceptable too. The events are also visible from Mexico roughly along a line from Manzanillo on the Pacific coast to Tuxpan on the Gulf coast. (Compared to Florida the apparent encounter happens 8 minutes earlier at the Mexican Pacific coast and 5 minutes earlier at the Gulf coast). ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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