I was able to find Sirius 1 last night with my 8" under not-so-dark and not-so-clear skies. I estimate that it was magnitude 11.5 or 12 and Ed did not disagree with me. We watched it for about 8 minutes about altitude 50, azimuth 124 at a range of 22000 miles. Sirius 1 1 26390U 00035A 03171.20020180 -.00000086 00000-0 10000-3 0 4986 2 26390 63.1057 274.5569 2695101 269.7916 59.7673 1.00269383 10893 ETS 6 was seen varying from about 8.5 to 11 at 9000 miles. Its tumble period seems to have nearly stabilized after 6 years at about 8.5 seconds. Ed spotted Telstar 402 flashing to about magnitude 2.5 just before shadow entry. Period 3.1 seconds. Range 2700 miles. The GPS 52 Delta rocket (27705) came over us at 145 miles - magnitude 1. An old DMSP - object 05903 was seen to vary from magnitude 5.5 to 7.5. Object 01815 - France 1 Scout rocket was seen about magnitude 9.5. Debris object 22417 (1992-93DJ) was seen varying from 9.5 to inv. LRE was not seen at 12000 miles - has anyone ever seen LRE? On Friday evening I spotted object 25397 - TechSat 1B at about magnitude 9.5 or 10 as it went straight down in the northwest after shadow exit. Ed has seen many objects as abnormally bright in our northwest in the last couple of weeks as they go down in our northwest directly towards the sun. The big ones are often "one power". IGS 1B is often seen "one power" at about 16 degrees up in the northwest after shadow exit, but it is much fainter at the same range when it is in the northeast. This also seems to be true of the other objects. So they are "flaring" when they are between us and the sun? Mike McCants Austin, TX ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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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