Hi, Tonight I tried to observe the Bion M1 satellite(2013-15A/39130?) but did not see it. Instead, with one day old elements from Space Track, I saw a variable object moving through UMA only a few degrees of track compared to the predicted track of the Bion satellite. I identified it as 2013-15H/39137. Predicted time of Bion was 21:03UTC in UMA. The observed object passed at 21:00UTC. It was tumbling with a period of about 3s with flat maxima and a maximum brightness of about mag +2. I presume this is the third stage Soyuz rocket which was passing at an altitude of about 340km as the other objects(39131-39136) are smaller satellites still to be tracked in orbit(I presume) Bion M1 probably manoevred or was not as bright as the rocket. Nevertheless, I am still surprised I did not see it. greetings, Tristan Cools BWGS-Belgium -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/private/seesat-l/attachments/20130422/da00372f/attachment.html _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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