Last night something was traveling parallel to USA 186 (05-042A, 28888). I haven't yet gotten around to trying to identify it. They were about a degree apart, maybe one and a half, going very parallel, same speed. This was early on August 18 UTC (evening of August 17, local time). Superbird A (89-041A, 20040) is getting on to the southwest and lower in the sky. Last night its flash episode began just before 4:00 UTC when it was near roughly RA 16:00, Dec -10 (2000). It's easy to see with my 8x42 binoculars for four or five minutes and can be seen for up to seven minutes on a good night when there are no competing objects. This is from our suburban BCRC site, 30.315N, 97.866W. Italsat 1 (91-003A, 21055) is flashing just before 5:00 UTC, with a flash period of about 59 seconds. Generally I can only see half a dozen flashes, maybe seven, with my 8x42 binoculars. When it's higher in the sky, its brightest flashes should be easy to see without magnification -- depending on moonlight and local conditions. I saw a near-geosynch flashing the other night with flashes at 43 and 32 seconds, but I wasn't able to identify it due to inadequate positional measurements and too many candidates -- and not seeing it again since. Thank you to Russell Eberst who caught an error of mine a few days ago. I wrote: "Suitsat (05-034C, 28933)", but Suitsat is 05-035C. 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
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