Hello, I have a question for this list. We received a 'fireball' report for June 24, 21:24 UTC from Alphen a/d Rijn, the Netherlands. After questioning the eyewitness it became apparent that the object was so slow it must have been a satellite. Indeed, the trajectory for satellite # 20638 (ROSAT) perfectly matches the observation both in time and sky trajectory. My question is, if anybody knows what brightness this satellite can attain and if it might show flares of considerable brightness. This because the observer states he saw it attain a magnitude of mag. -6 for a few seconds. Anyone available to confirm this? This is also a good opportunity to introduce myself. I have been silently 'lurking' this list for a few weeks now. I am not a true active satellite observer. I am mainly an active meteor observer actually, and I signed up to the list to keep up to date with possible satellite decays. This I did, because everytime a slow fireball appears in the Netherlands or Belgium, someone in the meteor community will put forward the opinion that it was a satellite re-entry (which almost invariably it wasn't in the end). Instead of logging in to Alan Pickup's website or contacting him after such occasions time and time again, I thought it worthwhile to sign up to the list instead and be kept up to date instantly. In a short timespan of a few weeks I learned a lot (also through the satellite observers website, through which I ended up on this list) and this made my interest in sats grow. Apart from this, my growing interest in satellites has two other reasons. We of course note quite some sats during our meteor observations. And a number of us in the Dutch Meteor Society have come to like scouting for Iridium flares (over the past 3 weeks I have been trying to catch a few on photo flaring over nice scenic parts of Leyden, where I live). Well, that's enough for an introduction I guess. Some further background on my astronomic and other activities can be found on my website - Marco Langbroek ---------- Marco Langbroek marco.langbroek@wanadoo.nl meteorites@dmsweb.org http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek "What seest thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time?" William Shakespeare The Tempest act I scene 2 ---------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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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