21667 and 23087
Walter Nissen (dk058@cleveland.Freenet.Edu)
Mon, 12 Feb 1996 12:44:39 -0500
I caught C* 2154 r = 21667 = 91- 59 A on the 10th UT with a period close
to 15s, confirming Mike McCants' OBSs. PPAS report should be forthcoming
soon.
On page 68 of the March Sky&Telescope, Gerald Ouellette writes "23087 is
usually obvious to the naked eye at 2nd magnitude or so". Mike, what do
you have for an absolute magnitude for 23087? Rainer Kracht has
identified this object as a Tselina-2 object at 850 km, and if I
understand correctly, not a very bright one. In my own experience,
neither this object nor any of its sisters is even remotely 2nd magnitude.
In my list of bright objects, available from the SeeSat-L archive, the
historic brightest observation of them all is 3rd. 23087 has been such a
poor performer that I have seldom seen it.
If any of you are doing the math for the map on page 68, the latest elset
from Goddard SFC OIG:
C* 2278
1 23087U 94023A 96040.30532652 +.00000223 +00000-0 +14683-3 0 02965
2 23087 071.0171 085.7051 0009329 162.6673 197.4771 14.12225012092758
suggests that actually it will be over 3 minutes earlier than the map
gives (near here for the pass described on line 9 of the table there).
Cheers.