Two new unknown geosats
Rainer Kracht (R.Kracht@t-online.de)
Tue, 27 Feb 96 22:23 +0100
Two new unknown geosats
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On Feb 22 Daniel Karcher took a photograph of an unknown geosat close
to 12.1 deg west longitude, which showed no (or small) trail during the
90 sec exposure. The next day I tried to find it with my 8" SCT without
success. But close to the expected position of Daniel's object there was
another unknown geosat (about mag 10.5) which moved about 70 arcsec/min
to the north and 40 arcsec/min to the east. I followed the object for
more than an hour and could derive a first orbit. The inclination of
the orbit is 4.0 deg and I have found it close to its ascending node.
Daniel managed to take photographs of the new geosat on Feb 24,25,26,
so we have now a reliable orbit for it:
GEO348
1 99348U 96 56.00000000 .00000000 00000-0 00000+0 0 01
2 99348 4.0208 87.3294 0228524 1.1947 53.5767 1.00271095 05
Daniel's photographs from Feb 25 and 26 also show his unknown from
Feb 22. It remained close to 12.1 deg west longitude and has evidently
a low inclination low eccentricity orbit.
Jean-Phillippe Donnio's Satellite Encyclopedia has DSCS 3-06 (92-37A,
22009) at 12 deg west and Jonathan has for 92-37A:
UNITED NATIONS REGISTRY OF SPACE OBJECTS
Nation Cum COSPAR Period Peri Apo Inc Note1 Note2 Ed.Note
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)
US 1392 1992-37A 1436.2 35775 x 35800 x 0.2 1C
So it seems very likely that Daniel's object is identical with 92-37A.
Yesterday (Feb 26) at 20:15.5 UTC Daniel saw GEO348 0.15 deg SW of
92-37A (mag 11.5) and then a close approach to about 0.05 deg.
Rainer Kracht 1996 Feb 27
0412188960-0001@t-online.de
R.Kracht@t-online.de
+9.6626E, +53.7695N, 9m