Re: Intelsat 5-3 R obs

From: Leo Barhorst (leobarhorst@zonnet.nl)
Date: Sat Jun 10 2000 - 07:08:50 PDT

  • Next message: Leo Barhorst: "Obs June 11 morning"

    Hello Brian,
    
    Congratulations on you observation.
    You've done well.
    Last time I observed 81-119 B, in feb 2000, it was at 6,85 sec.
    It is slowly going up. See the PPAS archive for a complete
    list of observations from this sat.
    When I observe it in my 7x35 bino's it is hard to see. Just a small
    dot of light every 7 seconds at about mag 6, sometimes mag 5.
    
    You can indeed be impressed by yourself.
    
    
    Greetings and clear, dark skies
    Leo Barhorst
    52.767 N  5.09 E  2 m ASL
    
    Brian wrote:
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    Subject: Intelsat 5-3 R obs
    
    
    Anyway, I was using SatSpy to look for interesting passes and saw
    that Intelsat 5-3 R (13007 or 81119B, take your pick) was making
    a fairly slow pass and might be within reach of my scope, so just
    for the heck of it I decided to try to observe it with my little
    6" newt from my suburban LA location. I successfully found it and
    tracked it for about 30 minutes. I see it's a slow flasher and
    decided to time it. I counted 100 flashes lasting 11 min 40.15 sec
    for a flash period of almost exactly 7 seconds.
    
    I am admittedly inexperienced at estimating magnitudes but I would
    say the brightest flashes were just a bit brighter than mag 6.
    Sometimes it seemed that the flashes were actually two closely
    spaced flashes but it was hard to tell for sure. In between flashes
    it's magnitude varied between being totally invisible and just
    barely visible, this over a period of minutes.
    
    Also, as best as I can compare, it was on track and on time within
    1 second. I observed the sat from about June 10, 5:45UT to about
    6:15UT (10:45pm to 11:15pm local PDT).
    
    I'm particularly impressed with myself being a novice and being
    able to acquire and track a satellite at a range in excess of 10000
    km. I credit SatSpy's real-time sky plot for this feat.
    
    
    
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