Hi All Whilst doing an 80 minute orbit plane scan for a lost classified satellite, using my homemade CoSaTrak tracking system, I observed a slow moving satellite cross the edge of my video monitors field of view. The satellite was visible for about a minute and was about magnitude +07.4 and steady. On running predictions for the area in question it looks like the satellite was 79104N which is in a 382.6 minute orbit at an inclination of around 15 degrees and rather high eccentricity giving it a perigee of around 708 kilometres and an apogee of around 21460 kilometres. At the time of my observation the predicted range was 13800 kilometres approximately. What makes this interesting is the following: (1) although the launch identification indicates it was launched in 1979 - an early Ariane launch, it was only cataloged recently - catalog number 26532. (2) the satellite is quite bright so must be reasonably large - I estimate a standard magnitue of around +03.5 - so how come it has only now been catalogued some 20 odd years later ? I suspect that the identity "tie-up" is incorrect . Part of the problem is the low inclination but even at medium altitudes it will be in easy reach of higher latitudes so why havent amateurs picked it up between 1979 and now ? Anyway have a go at it - I attach the element set I used and the satellite was less than a minute early, even though I was using the SGP4 prediction algorithm. 79104N 1 26532U 79104N 02001.70205919 +.00003528 +00000-0 +41087-1 0 00344 2 26532 015.5447 156.5867 5941435 130.0887 299.9421 03.76404222033554 (hope the formating does not get mangled in OUTLOOK EXPRESS! ) For those interested I will attach the IOD report of positions observed in a seperate message. Cheers Greg Cape Town, South Africa ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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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