I was at the Ney Museum site early. I was scanning the area
of Bootes, Corona, Serpens Caput and Hercules in the twilight,
trying to get my bearings, when I saw a close pair of
southeast-bound satellites in the field of view of my 8x42
binoculars. Below are my unfortunately very rough clicks.
Given it was still twilight, with the Sun down only about ten
degrees, I was not able to see faint stars. A few minutes
later when I was trying to ID stars, there were cirrus clouds
in the way. The date and times are 16 June 2007.
01 ----- 2:18:51.2 leader passing unknown bright star?
02 4.28 2:18:55.5 very late mark of follower past star?
03 .25 2:18:55.7 not sure why I clicked here
04 18.96 2:19:14.7 bright star passage (maybe two deg.)
05 1.85 2:19:16.5 follower, same star
06 27.25 2:19:43.8 bright star passage (maybe two deg.)
07 .82 2:19:44.6 follower, same star (note below)
08 31.13 2:20:15.7 bright star passage
09 2.10 2:20:17.8 follower, same star
10 86.40 2:21:44.2 star 20 Oph & flare to magnitude zero
11 2.16 2:21:46.4 follower pass 20 Oph & flare to zero
12 53.23 2:22:39.6 4 degrees left of Jupiter
13 1.85 2:22:41.5 follower
14 41.38 2:23:22.8 6 degrees below Jupiter
15 .71 2:23:23.6 follower, very belated click, afterthought
The star 20 Oph is RA 16:49:49, Dec -10.8 (2000). The pair of
satellites passed below and left of the star, less than .25
degree from it, direction down and right of course.
Note: I think that click 06 was very late, rather than click 07
being early.
For the last two pairs of observations I was facing Jupiter,
approximately azimuth 140. I could not see stars there so
just tried to estimate passages directly left of and below
Jupiter, based on the 8-degree field of view of my binoculars.
I'm embarrassed at the roughness of the data, but the sky was
bright with some cirrus clouds, and I get somewhat flustered
about this sort of thing.
A few minutes later I was not able to find the NOSS 2-3 objects.
I came home after the very nice pass of USA 193, which was
partly obscured by a band of cirrus.
Oh, aside from when they were flaring, I will guess that the
two satellites were +4.5, but they probably were brightening
as they went from east to southeast, until after they passed
20 Oph.
Ney Museum site: 30.307N, 97.727W, 150m.
Thanks very much to Mike for the suggestion to look early, and
due to some good luck I saw them even though they were earlier
than that!
Ed Cannon - Austin, Texas, USA
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