Very bright geosync satellite
Rainer Kracht (R.Kracht@t-online.de)
Tue, 16 Jul 96 18:44 +0100
Very bright geosync satellite
On one of his photographs of comet Hale-Bopp Gerald Remann discovered
the starlike trail of an unknown object of magnitude 6 - 7. He gave
this information:
observing site: Sankt Pölten, Austria
(long. 15.63 E, lat. 48.19 N, 270 m)
positions: 1996 July 13 22:46 UTC RA 18:24.5 D -8d17' 2000.0
22:53 18:32.0 -8d09' 2000.0
23:30 19:04 -7d36' 2000.0
First two times +/- 30 sec, third time +/- 10 minutes.
On July 15 I got a phone call from Jost Jahn (Vereinigung der Stern-
freunde), who asked me to identify the object. Nothing was found with
Mike's ALLDAT.TLE. Next I tried to derive an orbit with FIRST and
ELCOR:
1
48.1900 -15.6300 1150. Gerald Remann
UNK960713
1 96713U 96195.51095972 .00000000 00000-0 00000+0 0 06
2 96713 3.7001 290.8696 0345170 318.3368 228.3842 1.00274000 04
1 96 7 13 22 46 0.0 18 24.50 -8.283 2000 1.0
1 96 7 13 22 53 0.0 18 32.00 -8.150 2000 1.0
1 96 7 13 23 23 0.0 19 4.00 -7.600 2000 0.0 not used
0 0
1195 2246 .0 1.4 18 24.50 -8.283 18 24.50 -8.283 .000 .000 .000
1195 2253 .0 1.4 18 32.00 -8.150 18 32.00 -8.150 .000 .000 .000
1195 2323 .0 3.4 19 3.99 -7.571 19 4.00 -7.600 .002 -.029 .030
This orbit looked quite reasonable, but the object was incredibly bright
for a rather long time.
As my sky grew dark it was completely overcast. I had to wait more than
two hours before the first small holes appeared between the clouds and I
could identify some stars in southern Aquila with 10x50B. Then I turned
to 20x80B, because I expected not more than mag 8 to 9 for the unknown
object. Searching was rather difficult as stars appeared and disappeared
among clouds.
About July 15 23:35 UTC I found a bright object (mag 6.5) which didn't
move together with the other stars. I could get two rough points before
my sky was completely overcast again:
1996 July 15 23:44:20.78 UTC RA 19:35.15 D -7d34.1' 2000.0
23:44:57.22 19:35.45 -7d36.6' 2000.0
positional accuracy +/- 0.05 deg
timing accuracy +/- 0.2 seconds.
mag 6.5 steady
These observations are on track and about 3 minutes late with my first
elset. An improved orbit is:
2
48.1900 -15.6300 1150. Gerald Remann
53.7695 -9.6626 30. Rainer Kracht
UNK960713
1 96713U 96195.51095972 .00000000 00000-0 00000+0 0 06
2 96713 3.6027 292.9766 0211334 301.6396 243.2487 1.00239934 00
1 96 7 13 22 46 0.0 18 24.50 -8.283 2000 0.3
1 96 7 13 22 53 0.0 18 32.00 -8.150 2000 0.3
1 96 7 13 23 24 0.0 19 4.00 -7.600 2000 0.0 not used
2 96 7 15 23 44 20.8 19 35.15 -7.568 2000 1.0
2 96 7 15 23 44 57.2 19 35.45 -7.610 2000 1.0
0 0
1195 2246 .0 11.6 18 24.50 -8.274 18 24.50 -8.283 .001 -.009 .009
1195 2253 .0 -1.5 18 32.00 -8.146 18 32.00 -8.150 .000 -.004 .004
1195 2324 .0 .0 19 3.99 -7.587 19 4.00 -7.600 .003 -.013 .014
2197 2344 20.8 -9.3 19 35.15 -7.586 19 35.15 -7.568 -.001 .018 .018
2197 2344 57.2 8.5 19 35.44 -7.580 19 35.45 -7.610 .002 -.030 .030
Rainer Kracht 1996 July 16
R.Kracht@t-online.de
+9.6626E, +53.7695N, 9m