Telstar 401 & Iridium 79
Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Thu, 04 Mar 1999 03:13:49 -0600
Wednesday evening (early Thursday UTC) Mike McCants and I
watched what seems to match Telstar 401 (22927, 93-77A)
for about an hour and 45 minutes. The first ten flashes
that I recorded were possibly as bright as +2.0. They
are slow, smooth flashes that perhaps last as long as
a second (perhaps a bit more when observed in telescope).
The eleventh flash was obviously fainter, and each one
after that was even fainter until the last one Mike
observed in his telescope, which he estimated to be about
+9. That was the 26th flash, if I counted correctly. The
flash period is about 246.7 seconds. Neither of us saw
anything between the flashes. The rough time I wrote down
for the first one that I saw was 1:56:50 UTC (7:56:50 PM
CST).
Observing location was the driveway of Mike's house, which
I think is about 30.334N, 97.760W, 158m.
The last two nights Iridium 79 has made unusual passes
here. Tuesday night it was visible at one-power for much
of the pass, varying irregularly, and after culmination
it exhibited a few *very* bright flashes. It was similar
Wednesday night except that the visible one-power
variations looked almost like an ordinary tumbling rocket,
but then after culmination it again displayed a few very
bright flashes, although not as bright as Tuesday night.
Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA