Well, an old friend turned up unexpectedly last night. I was looking for Gorizont 23 when an unexpected flash appeared at the lower edge of my field of view. It had been pretty bright and it's a beautiful night, so after some seconds I started watching without the binoculars and not quite two minutes after the first saw another flash about +3. There were five more before it disappeared. When I got home and checked for candidates, Telstar 401 (22927, 93-077A) was a very good match. I believe that it was first observed flashing by a couple in a hot tub in Houston, Texas: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Feb-1999/0394.html PPAS report: 93- 77 A 02-01-09 05:07:08 EC 602.3 0.5 5 120.5 +3->inv I didn't find Intelsat 512, or Gorizont 23. I had a "cedar fever" allergy attack while trying to find Intelsat 512. "Cedar" is ashe juniper (called "mountain cedar" around here), which pollinates at this time of year, and to which I'm extremely allergic. Note to self: Take allergy medicine before going outside to observe during cedar-fever season! Here are Orion 3 (25727) -- PPAS reports for two nights (seen from UT Austin campus, 30.286N, 97.739W, 150m): Tuesday evening local time-- 99- 24 A 02-01-09 00:30:50 EC 57.6 1.0 3 19.2 -1->inv Actual stopwatch clicks (On these data, if there's an error, the lap times are more reliable because I did some arithmetic on the absolute times in my head.): 01 -- 0:29:52.59 02 15.00 0:30:07.59 03 4.25 0:30:11.84 04 15.04 0:30:26.88 05 4.11 0:30:30.99 06 15.48 0:30:46.47 07 3.71 0:30:50.18 Monday evening local time-- 99- 24 A 02-01-08 00:46:09 EC 58.7 1.0 3 19.6 -1->inv Actual stopwatch clicks: 01 -- 0:45:10.12 02 14.97 0:45:25.09 03 .49 0:45:25.58 04 3.81 0:45:29.41 05 14.96 0:45:44.35 06 .57 0:45:44.92 07 4.13 0:45:49.05 08 15.51 0:46:04.56 09 4.26 0:46:08.82 There were a number of other, fainter flashes at some of the maxima, too fast to click on them (i.e., multiple-flash maxima). Addition to my list of objects observed without magnification for Tuesday PM January 8 local time -- I omitted Cosmos 1220 (12054, 80-089A), which I saw between Cosmos 1125 Rk and Cosmos 2053 Rk. Now I must get some sleep! Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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