Hello everybody, I've seen several dozen satellites while observing Perseids on Aug 10/11, 11/12 and 12/13. Most of them were identified before or after observations but I failed to ID two flashers using SkyMap 6.5 and fresh Mike McCants' alldat.tle. Observation date: August 11/12, 2002 Location: Vlasovo (90km north from Moscow) Lat, Long, Elev: 56o40'N, 37o52'E, 131 m Moscow Summer Time = UT+0400 1. Unknown satellite in SSE-NNW direction flared to -2..-3m in Pegasus at 1:17 MSK Aug. 12 (21:17 UT Aug. 11), faded to +4.5m in Cassiopea and then suddenly flared again to -2m in UMa at 1:20. Due to watch failure no precise timing was possible (had to use pager instead). No exact position in my notes made the search yet more difficult. Is there any hope to ID this one using such a crude description? 2. -2m flare at 2:56 over alpha UMa was identified next morning as UME 1 (8709, 76019A). 3. Unknown flasher was spotted at 3:38 on ENE near epsilon Aurigae heading towards Perseus and Pleiades. At 3:39-3:40 its path has almost crossed with a brighter (2.5-3m) satellite. The latter was moving faster with elevation still rising (appr. at 2:30 o'clock direction) while flasher was moving rather horizontally or a little bit downwards. One of two sats was IRS-1A, the other could have been Kosmos-1275 debris 81053EJ. Is any of them known to be tumbling? Sorry for not sending this request before - lots of work here lately. Several other sats were seen worth mentioning. Aug. 10/11: (observing from another location west from Moscow) USA-160 and USA-160C at 0:50 through Sagitta and Delphinus; -7m Iridium 63 flare in Pegasus at 2:29; Aug. 11/12: -8m Iridium 66 flare in Pegasus at 2:23; Aug. 12/13 : -7m Iridium 18 flare in Perseus at 23:20 simultaneously with two (!) Perseid meteors. Best regards, Denis in Moscow ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Aug 16 2002 - 13:29:04 EDT