Object 90020 was discovered by Peter Birtwhistle, U. K. on Feb 8. See: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Feb-2004/0045.html http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Feb-2004/0050.html http://www.birtwhi.demon.co.uk/GalleryGS428A.htm http://home.gwi.net/~pluto/mpecs/gs428a.htm I was able to observe this object on Saturday evening. It was observed for over 10 minutes from 2:50 until 3:00 PM UT Feb. 15. The altitude was 32 degrees, the azimuth was 60 degrees and the range was about 15000 miles. The observations were with an 8 inch telescope under very dark and clear skies. The magnification used was 90x. When I first spotted it, the object "flashed" every 2.25 seconds to magnitude 9 or 9.5. "Tumbles" were visible in between the flashes. After a few minutes, the flashes faded out and only the tumbles were observed. The tumbles were to about magnitude 10. The tumbles were timed to have a period of 4.5 seconds. My tentative conclusions: This is a large object. Tumbles to magnitude 10 at that range means the object is something like 10 to 15 feet long and about 3 feet in diameter. It is bright enough to be a large payload or a Centaur rocket. This is probably not a rocket. The flashes that were observed indicate some very flat reflecting surface. Although occasional flashes have been seen from rockets, such flashes are rare enough that the fact that flashes have been observed from this object so often would imply that it is not a rocket. An alternative to a flat reflecting surface would be antennas. This object is no longer being "controlled" and thus it is not going to maneuver. I am not aware of any other object that matches this description. I would have to guess that this is a large payload like USA 112 (95 34A), but it is no longer being controlled. The orbit plane does not match the predicted orbit plane for any payload in an orbit like this that I am aware of. ---- A post by Ted Molczan in Sept., 2000. http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Sep-2000/0334.html From that post: The plane of the real 95034A is expected to lie roughly mid-way between the planes of 94026A and 97068A, which are currently about 127 deg apart. ---- This object seems to be about mid-way between the orbit planes of those two lost objects. Unknown 040208 1 90020U 04539A 04045.81988695 -.00000800 00000-0 -74658-0 0 02 2 90020 65.0528 349.2977 6951619 273.6400 86.3600 2.00702958 05 Mike McCants Austin, TX ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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