Re: Geostationary Solar Eclipse on 28-FEB-06

From: Ed Cannon (edcannonsat@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Feb 24 2006 - 21:12:49 EST

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    Thank you very much to Gerald Holtkamp, who wrote:
    
    "some geostationary satellites will experience a solar eclipse 
    on 28-FEB-06.
    
    <...>
    
    "Observers in America (North and South) can see some GEOs 
    around 102 West experiencing an annular solar eclipse
    
         DIRECTV 8  (2005-019A ; #28659; 100.7W)  at 5:01 UT
         DIRECTV 1-R (1999-056; #25937; 100.8W) at 5:01 UT
         GE4	(1999-060A; #259549; 101.0W) at 5:02 UT
         DIRECTV 4S (2001-052A ;  #26985; 101.1W) at 5:02 UT
         SPACEWAY 1  (2005-015A ; #28644; 102.8W) at 5:07 UT
         GE-1	(1996-054A; #24315; 103.0W) at 5:08 UT
    
    "Expect a drop in magnitude of about 2.5. The overall partial 
    phase will last half an hour."
    
    Feb. 28 falls within "flaring geosat season" for quite a bit of 
    the northern hemisphere, so some of the objects above, which
    are in a tightly packed group, may be brighter than normal part 
    of the time.  (These are near our meridian, so their actual 
    flaring time is around local true midnight, which is roughly 90 
    minutes later than the solar eclipse.  But I tend to think it 
    would be an interesting night to try to observe them, right 
    around the times above.)
    
    Now if only we can shake the recent cloudy weather....
    
    Ed Cannon - Austin, Texas, USA
    
    
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