Björn wrote: > In addition to Ted's, I find only Alberto's obs 20:06 on or > after the day of the 03155.82943925 elset. He reported it > being late, but apparantly not enough to make analysts > believe there was a maneouvre. It looks like 1.5 s from > 03154.07799401 elset. Could there have been an inclination > change at ascending node, though perigee is at 046 ? I doubt it. After adjusting for Earth's rotation, the object was within 0.04 deg of the latest elements. One caveat is that I used reference stars nearly 1 deg apart, so my accuracy probably was no better than 0.05 deg. It is unfortunate that my passes happen to be almost exactly at perigee, because most reboosts have nearly zero affect on perigee distance. Observations made closer to apogee reveal the change in change in altitude above Earth, which I have found most helpful in narrowing down the range of perigee-crossings at which a manoeuvre could have been made. I very nearly missed the object last night. I was waiting for it near the predicted culmination of 38 deg in the west. When it was obvious that it was going to be late, I adjusted my aim a bit lower, to allow for Earth's rotation, but not enough. Suddenly, I saw a brief, bright flash that barely made it into the bottom of my field of view. I reacted quickly enough to catch up to it (it was moving at 1 deg/s), and so managed to obtain my one point. I had badly misjudged the rate of elevation adjustment needed to compensate for the late arrival and Earth's rotation - the object's low altitude above the Earth necessitated a greater rate of compensation. Weather forecast here is doubtful for tonight. The Clear Sky Clock indicates considerable cloud by 23 h local time, when the object is due, but much can change between now and then: http://cleardarksky.com/c/Torontokey.html Ted Molczan ----------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from SeeSat-L, send a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@satobs.org List archived at http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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