Decay watch: Molniya 3-11, Dec.1 obs

Daniel Deak (dan.deak@sympatico.ca)
Tue, 01 Dec 1998 20:39:32 -0500

Hi everybody,

I managed to catch Molniya 3-11 on its second visible
pass from my site. The first one was at 22:46 UTC
culmination time but the Moon was too bright in this area.

I was well prepared for the second pass scheduled for
00:30 UTC. It was on location within 0.2 degree and
12 seconds early +/- 1 sec. It came nearest to Nu Pisces
at 00:29:04 UTC +/- 1 sec.

Surprisingly, it flared twice to mag. +3 at about 15 sec.
interval. The first one was at about 00:28:53 UTC +/- 3 s.
Otherwise, the magnitude seemed varying from +7 to +5.

Elevation for the pass was between 40 and 50 deg.
Total observation time : 1 min.
Lost the satellite in umbra at around 00:29:30, it rapidly
faded.

A report on the rest of my observations will follow after
having eaten my macaroni.

Cheers !

Daniel Deak
St-Bonaventure, Quebec
45.9483 °N, -72.6539 °W, 58 m., UTC-5:00