ETS 6/Kiku 6, North America, tonight

From: Ed Cannon (edcannonsat@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Apr 01 2006 - 17:42:17 EST

  • Next message: Marco Langbroek: "Obs ML (4353), 1 Apr 2006: USA 129"

    Tonight ETS 6 (Kiku 6; 23230, 94-056A) will do a pass and 
    based on Mike Chini's observation the other night, it may be 
    spectacular.  It would be nice if observers in widely spaced 
    locations were to observe it more or less simultaneously -- 
    if possible.  (I don't know if the weather here will be 
    favorable.)  I checked heavens-above.com via its "Select 
    Satellite", but it did not give a prediction for tonight, 
    presumably because the satellite's normally expected 
    magnitude would be very faint.  But ETS 6/Kiku 6 is not run 
    of the mill.  I'm really pretty sure that it's what Mike 
    saw the other night, and its maxima were +1 magnitude, 
    every five or six seconds, at a range of about 10,000 miles 
    (16,000 km), more or less.  Mike saw it basically in Sextans
    at about 2:50 UTC, and it will be similarly located tonight.
    
    Friday morning here we had passes of ISS and 13 minutes 
    later the new Soyuz, but unfortunately the sky was overcast.
    
    Ed Cannon - Austin, Texas, USA
    
    
    __________________________________________________
    Do You Yahoo!?
    Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
    http://mail.yahoo.com 
    
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive:  
    http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Apr 01 2006 - 17:51:32 EST