97-68B

Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Fri, 16 Jul 1999 04:59:25 -0500

Last night was the second great night in a row.  Mike McCants
recovered 97-68B (25035, USA 136 Centaur) as it was coming 
north from perigee.  I was able to find it in my binoculars, 
about +6 I guess.  It's still flashing <grin>.  I don't know 
the exact numbers, but it was several (possibly up to ten)
 minutes early on this elset:

Centaur Rk
1 25035U 97068B   99016.92061084  .00000000  00000-0  00000+0 0    02
2 25035  64.5800 281.1640 7023000 265.4800  94.1617  2.02916000    07

A number of other fun things were observed.  There was a one-
power flare, about +2 when I first saw it just north of the 
bowl of the Big Dipper (UMa).  It lasted for several seconds 
around 5:02 on 16 July UTC, and that appears to have been 
SPOT 2 (20436, 90-5A).  A series of one-power flashes from 
that one's younger sibling, SPOT 3.  Very nice -5 or -6 flare 
by Iridium 63 at about 3:32:52, as predicted by Iridflar.
Additional observations of 99001.

I happened to point my binoculars just right to see a +3 or 
+4 eastbound meteor streak through the field!  I also saw a 
one-power meteor about +1.

Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA