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