Re: Decay observed???

From: Franz Strambach (franzl@licht-verschmutzung.de)
Date: Thu Jun 22 2000 - 20:33:30 PDT

  • Next message: chester.geoff@usno.navy.mil: "RE: 00-653 A"

    Dear Jonathan,
    before jumping in my bed the answers on your questions:
    
    tlj18@juno.com wrote:
    > Congratulations on your observation!  Two questions:
    > What was the approximate magnitude of the object?
    
    It was roughly the same colour and brightness like Antares (so let's say
    about mag 1 - object slightly (but not very much) brighter than the
    plasma trail).
    
    > And,
    > For how many seconds was the object visible?
    
    I can only estimate this, because I was so faszinated that I really lost
    my "feeling for time":
    But let's say I observed it for 8-15 seconds. (Unfortunately I missed
    the beginning. As I first noticed the object it had already a plasma
    trail.)
    
    > > I don't think this was a bolide "fireball" (4 reasons):
    > > 1. Object was travelling at orbital speed (7-9 km/s)
    
    > Yes, most meteors usually just zip across the sky and rarely last longer than a second.
    
    I've never seen such a slow-moving plasma-trail-object before. So I
    immediately thought "This could be a reentering satellite".
    
    Wish you a good night,
    clear and dark skies
    
    Franz Strambach
    23.06.2000
    
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