Re: SPOT 1 r BJ
Craig Cholar (3432P@VM1.CC.NPS.NAVY.MIL)
Mon, 09 Mar 98 09:59:42 PST
Tyler MacKenzie mentioned that Spot 1 Rk BJ might be the unid seen by Jari
(see http://www2.plasma.mpe-garching.mpg.de/sat/seesat/Mar-1998/0095.html)
That debris fragment is very interesting to observe. It's in my
personal high-priority list and have seen 18 passes of it so far.
Here's a snippet of an e-mail I sent privately to another California
Seesat subscriber on Oct 7 97. At that time I had only seen it a few
times. Note, the elset below is now very old, so don't use it!
>
>...Here's an interesting object:
>
>SPOT 1 r BJ 3.0 0.0 0.0 6.0
>1 17206U 86019BJ 97280.09111988 +.00003537 +00000-0 +61091-3 0 08451
>2 17206 098.5803 113.2382 0015687 240.5107 119.4530 14.69032566613967
>
>It's been making evening passes over the west coast; I've seen it
>three times through my scope. The magnitude and flash pattern has
>varied on each pass. Of the passes I've seen, the brightest by
>far was a N -> NW -> W -> SW 56 deg. pass tonight at about 8:20 PDT.
>Before culmination, it reached about mag 4.
>
>After culmination, it dimmed to about 7, but the pattern changed from a
>slow tumble to subsecond flashes. During my first pass a couple of days
>ago I picked it up after culmination and it was pretty dim, but flashing
>too fast to count!...
>
I haven't seen it exhibit any sub-second flashes recently, but even
with a more leisurely flash pattern it's still interesting. This
is one of those objects that can change it's appearance a great deal
over the course of a pass, so I usually try to acquire it as early as
possible.
Craig Cholar 3432P@VM1.CC.NPS.NAVY.MIL