Re: Anyone with a list of interesting sats

Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Wed, 17 Mar 1999 20:33:46 -0600 

Terry (terrypun@fast.net) wrote:

> Does anyone have an updated list of interesting satellites,  such as 
> all the tumblers, 

For tumbling/flashing satellites, see the Observing Program of the BWGS:

  http://www2.satellite.eu.org/sat/program.rob

especially the ones marked "b" or "!".

> the good NOSS's:

For the three brightest trios/triplets, get the Molczan file (available
from several sites) or classfd.tle, which is available as a zipped file
from:

  http://www.fc.net/~mikem/ftp/classfd.zip
  ftp://ftp.fc.net/pub/users/mikem/classfd.zip

and look for the ones named NOSS 2-1, 2-2, or 2-3 (1990-50 C, D, and E; 
1991-76 C, D, and E; and 1996-29 C, D, and E [hoping I've got the object
letters correct]).  Those are the three brightest threesomes, sometimes 
reaching one-power magnitude in reasonably good sky and occasionally -- 
according to reports -- flaring even brighter.  The earlier NOSS trios
are much fainter objects, and some of those triangles have "fallen
apart".

Also very interesting are USA 32 (19460, 88-78A) and USA 81 (21949, 
92-23A), which sparkle brightly on good passes.  Here's a description of 
them that Mike McCants wrote a while back:

] USA 32 is "pretty" since it usually "sparkles" from multiple specular
] reflections at a rate of once or twice a second.  I often see bright
] flashes at magnitude 2 or 3 for about 5 seconds when USA 32 or USA 81
] passes by at a "critical" sun-satellite-observer angle.  This is
] a little south of the east-west line from my latitude of +30 degrees.

 -- from http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/Jan-1997/0240.html --

> tetered ones

TiPS is about it for this category right now:

  http://hyperspace.nrl.navy.mil/TiPS/index.html

Anytime there's a tethered satellite, you'll hear about it!

> And maybe a list of the brightest geostationary ones for eastern USA (I
> haven't seen any of these yet).

Someone else will have to provide this list.  Some geosynch and near-geo
satellites are on the BWGS list of tumbling/flashing objects.  See also

  http://www2.satellite.eu.org/geosats.html
 
> Is there a ongoing SeeSat Hall of Fame list?

I don't think so, although a quick scan of the Visual Satellite
Observers
Home Page:

  http://www2.satellite.eu.org/satintro.html (The "2" is
optional.)

hits some highlights:  bright satellites, flashing satellites, Centaur 
rocket boosters, geostationary, ISS, Iridium, Mir, re-entering
satellites, 
and spy satellites.

By the way, I hope you've seen EGP....

Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA