ETS 6 observations
Willie Koorts (wpk@saao.ac.za)
Mon, 27 Jul 1998 09:42:17 +0200 (GMT+0200)
Hi Folks
Thanks to some great help from Tony and Jason I managed to respond to the
warning of Rob about ETS 6 flashing my way.
In getting ready for it, I unfortunately found that my stopwatch was not
working any more and changing the battery did not help either. At least I
remebered to set my wristwatch to within ms of the correct time before
leaving work. The best I could do then was to compare the flashes to my
wristwatch which overall then should yield about 1/2 sec. acuraccy. (We don't
have any radio time signals here in SA any more.) I proceeded by timing busts
of about 10 flashes at a time (which I found was about the max. I could
manange at a time using my 8x80 monocular) recording the start and stop times
of such a sequence by my wristwatch.
Not knowing exactly what to expect initially, I could have missed the exact
start of the flash sequence for Wellington but the first flashes I noticed in
the 80mm refractor was at 20:11:31 UT on 24 July 1998 when at Alt.42 Az.291.
Here are the results of my timing sequences:
Start time(UT) End time(UT) # of flashes Elapsed time(sec) Flash period
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~
20:14:47 20:17:31 10 164 16.4
20:20:14 20:23:32 12 198 16.5
20:24:37 20:27:21 10 164 16.4
20:32:15 20:36:38 16 263 16.4
20:44:16 20:46:59 10 163 16.3
20:57:21 21:00:05 10 164 16.4
21:05:49 21:08:32 10 163 16.3
21:16:43 21:19:10 9 147 16.3
21:25:10 21:27:49 10 159 15.9
At 21:42 a secondary flash - just slightly dimmer than the main flash - about
3 to 4 secs after the main one was noticed for the first time. The "wrong"
value of the last reading above might indicate that the secondary flashes
were already present then. The timing below is between the main flashes
only.
21:43:23 21:46:06 10 163 16.3
21:53:12 21:56:56 10 224 22.4
The wrong value of the last reading above might be that I wrongly copied down
the time by one minute ie. the above results in 3min44 (224 sec) instead of
the normal 2min44 (164 sec) - my guess is the start time should be 21:54:12?
At this time, although it was still flashing, I had to pack up for the night
and thus cannot report at which time the flashes stopped for my site.
Hope this is of some use to you, Rob and Tony.
Regards
Willie
Willie Koorts wpk@saao.ac.za
Cape Town, Observatory 33d 56' 03"S 18d 28' 36"E GMT + 2h
Wellington, South Africa 33d 38' 56"S 19d 00' 52"E GMT + 2h
For - Amateur Astronomy - Telescope Making - Satellite Tracking -
Visit .... http://www.saao.ac.za/~wpk/
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