Re: UNID

Stephmon@aol.com
Wed, 4 Aug 1999 16:11:28 EDT

According to Satellite Hunting, the two best candidates for time and track 
are...

Local Time  Satellite Name  Sat.#   Elev.   Azimuth Mag
10:14:41 PM Cosmos 1513 r   14547    37°    161° [S]    5.8
10:17:11 PM Cosmos 1513 r   14547    66°    092° [E]    5.1
10:21:35 PM Cosmos 1513 r   14547    20°    016° [N]    6.6

Local Time  Satellite Name  Sat.#   Elev.   Azimuth Mag
10:15:44 PM     Spot 3  22823    48°    134° [SE]   5.9
10:17:07 PM     Spot 3  22823    67°    072° [E]        5.5
10:20:53 PM     Spot 3  22823    20°    356° [N]        7.1

And the SatDesc description for Spot 3 mentions flashing...

Spot 3 -- 1993-061A International (Ariane 4 rocket from Kourou, French 
Guyana): [Remote Sensing] Carries DORIS [Doppler Orbitography and 
Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite] and POAM II [Polar Ozone and 
Aerosol Measurement] secondary payloads. FLASHING: Period of about 13 seconds.

In a message dated 8/4/99 2:13:50 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Hedgepet@stihl.de 
writes:

> I saw an unidentified satellite last night from my home in Chesapeake,
>  Virginia, USA (36.7653N, 76.2178W).  The bird culminated its pass at
>  approximately 2217 EDT (0217 UT 8/4/99) running almost directly south to
>  north and near zenith in the sky.  Also, it appeared to tumble and flash
>  rather erratically and brightly.
>  
>  I couldn't find any likely candidates using SatSpy 3.0 and the latest elset
>  from www.dransom.com.  Also, none of the sats listed in the GSOC/DLR 
visible
>  satellite passes printout for the evening looked like the right one.  I
>  would love to know which one it was so I could watch for it again.
>  
>  Any suggestions?
_______________________________________
Regards,
Stephen

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x    Satellite Hunting™ visible pass     x
x      prediction shareware v1.1.0       x
x    is now available for download at    x
x http://stephen.fathom.org/sathunt.html x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
    _/_/_/     _/    _/   _/   _/    _/_/_/
  _/          _/    _/   _/   _/   _/
   _/_/      _/_/_/_/   _/   _/   _/  _/_/
      _/    _/    _/   _/   _/   _/    _/
_/_/_/  _/ _/    _/ _/  _/_/  _/  _/_/_/ _/
Satellite Hunting User's Group (SHUG)