New Bright Unid (This mail is UNCLASSIFIED)
Brierley David (DMBRIERLEY@dera.gov.uk)
Thu, 17 Jun 1999 11:28:31 +0100
Dear SeeSaters
On June 10, while looking for 68-106B in the NW sky, I saw an unusually
bright slow-moving satellite. It seemed worth following, and I made
these observations. It reached mag +5.8 steady in the west.
IntlId SiteYYMMDDHHMMSSss Sss TCHHMMmm DDMMm Mm E
9909901267599061022514415 010 12104949 +43069 15 5
9909901267599061022524694 010 12111780 +41570 2 5
9909901267599061022555540 010 12123919 +34483 2 5
9909901267599061022573582 010 12131722 +29061 2 5
9909901267599061022593890 010 12135724 +21012 2 5
9909901267599061023020305 010 12143548 +10575 3 5
The object was not in Mike McCants' current elset file. The inclination
seemed to be near 63.4, so I fixed on that popular value, and allowed
the other elements to vary. It turned out to have been near apogee,
height 3100km, with a standard mag full-phase of +2.5. The orbit
enabled me to find the object again last night (June 16) only half a
minute early:
9909901267599061622270576 010 12112313 +35065 2 5
9909901267599061622281112 010 12114810 +32328 15 5
9909901267599061622324683 010 12131750 +17180 1 5
9909901267599061622343492 010 12134532 +10206 15 5
9909901267599061622371601 010 12142013 +00060 1 5
Peter Wakelin also saw the same object the previous night:
9909901201899061521485221 01 12142165 +1627 02 4
9909901201899061521504329 01 12144710 +0809 02 4
9909901201899061521582743 01 12155980 -1945 02 4
I have computed the following precise orbit. Can someone please turn it
into NORAD form?
9909901 99167.90066188 0.00000000
63.4395 65.9713 0.0234713 291.3036 67.5185 9.69752369
David M Brierley
Malvern, Worcestershire, UK
Station 2675, 52.1358N 2.3264W 70m
dmbrierley@compuserve.com
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