Brad wrote: "... 4 flashing geosats mentioned by Ed Cannon at similar phase angle but no luck." I owe Brad and others an apology for not updating sooner about one of them. But first, in general, neither GStar 1 (85-35A, 15677) nor GStar 4 (20946, 90-100B) was correct. As I did mention, what I thought was GStar 1 was actually ACTS (22796, 93-058B). Then, a couple of nights later, the one that I had thought was GStar 4 was determined actually to be Hotbird 1 (95-16B, 23537). So anyway, to summarize, the ones that were observed were the following three: 89-41A, 20040, Superbird A, about 10.5 seconds 93-58B, 22796, ACTS, complex, multiples of about 25.6 95-16B, 23537, Hotbird 1, about 7.1 Superbird A flashes very predictably about a minute later from one night to the next, visible for about seven minutes using my 8x42 binoculars. On 24 April I first saw it at about 3:35, and it was nearly exactly two minutes later two nights later. Mike looks for the phase shift, which is roughly the middle of when it can be observed easily, when the two flashes are equally bright. Hotbird 1 seemed like it was several minutes later the second night it was observed. ACTS was observed after 4 hours UTC, but the first night was completely by accident, beginning about 4:15. Footnote: Both GStar 1 and 4 have been observed flashing in the past, but only rarely. For their flash episodes to be predicted, enough observations have to be made to determine the orientation of the rotation axis -- if I understand/remember correctly. It's been cloudy the last three evenings, although I did see ISS between clouds earlier tonight. Ed Cannon - Austin, Texas, USA _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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