On 2003 Jan 16 at about 11:34 UTC, while looking out a window, I spotted two bright satellites on an apparent head-on collision course. As they closed in on one another, I could tell that this was going to be a very close appulse. Fortunately, I had my stopwatch handy, so I was able to time the moment of appulse, as judged by my unaided eye. To help identify the two satellites, I followed one of them until I could time its nearest approach to a known star (Polaris). I identified it as an SL-16 (Zenit) rocket body: Cosmos 2263 r 10.4 3.9 0.0 3.9 v 19.8 1 22803U 93059B 03015.90724810 .00000388 00000-0 21874-3 0 3191 2 22803 70.9853 182.9626 0015986 127.4413 232.8175 14.16407131482509 Next, I computed the position of the above at my measured time of the appulse, 11:34:34.23 UTC, and used IDSat to identify the other satellite, which is another SL-16 rocket body: Resurs 1-3 r 10.4 3.9 0.0 3.9 v 17.6 1 23343U 94074B 03015.91439727 .00000904 00000-0 14436-3 0 7969 2 23343 97.7364 16.3452 0008385 58.4593 301.7460 14.74089600440358 According to IDSat, the objects passed within 0.04 deg of one another within 0.01 s of my timing. They were about 12 deg from a direct head-on "collision". At the time of appulse, the objects were 234 km apart, measured along the radius from my position through theirs. Ted Molczan Site 2701: 43.68764 N, 79.39243 W, 230 m ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jan 16 2003 - 15:32:15 EST