Re: Okean-O Rk a Flasher
Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Fri, 23 Jul 1999 03:30:10 -0500
Way back on July 18 Don Gardner <Mir16609@aol.com> wrote:
> Viewing conditions tonight are pretty terrible. Through a clear
> area in the haze I was able to observe the Okean-O Rk for about
> 15 seconds. It was flashing in a pattern similar to Globalstar
> 36 r (25625, 99004E) - 3 quick flashes and a pause in about 1
> second. The flashes were about a +2.0 mag. These were observed
> at 02:28:30 UTC, 18 July.
Last night I watched it (25861, 99-39B) at one-power (neat!) and
saw the 0.5 second period again, but Mike McCants observed it
with his telescope and, if I understood correctly (I really don't
want to put words in his mouth!), said it had secondary maxima
between the primaries -- that is, two pairs of maxima per second.
That doesn't change the fundamental period, but it makes it even
more interesting.
Okean-O itself (25860, 99-39A) was again an easy one-power object
for much of its pass. It weighs over six metric tons (6150 kg),
but I haven't been able to find its dimensions yet. There's an
image of it on this page:
http://www.okean-o.dp.ua/en_satellite.html#General
Maybe someone who can read Russian can find on this other page
about its orbital parameters whether it's already in its final
orbit or in a parking orbit:
http://www.okean-o.dp.ua/ru_page-1.html
Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA