I wrote: pair in one FOV -- 25740 99-027A Nimiq 1 26038 99-071A Galaxy 11 Kevin Fetter pointed out that Nimiq 2 (27632, 02-062A) is now the operational one at 91 west and Nimiq 1 the back-up at 82 west. Mike checked elsets and found that they were very close on about January 27. (I had gotten the latest five and found some significant mean-motion peculiarities.) So it seems that SCC thinks that Nimiq 1 is still at 91 west, but it's really Nimiq 2 there now. Maybe SCC didn't see that memo yet. Echostar 3 (25004, 97-059A), which was one-power the other night, was easily visible through the moonlit cirrus clouds last night. Both nights it disappeared very quickly after being so bright, kind of a classic "flaring before shadow entry" exhibition. A few of them in the past few nights have flared brightest around RA 10:30, others nearer to RA 11:00 (and shadow). I haven't yet managed to see (with binoculars) this time the ones that before have flared hours before shadow entry: Galaxy 11, XM-1, XM-2, and Anik F1. (I think that GE 3 did so also.) May not see them with binocs this season, given the waxing Moon. I want to emphasize what Mike wrote about the other day, that, (in my words) the flaring tends to be reduced nearer midnight as opposed to earlier in the evening: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Feb-2003/0469.html So the best time in general seems to be after they get up out of the worst atmospheric extinction (or before getting into it in the morning), but a couple of hours before midnight. So, I hope that someone east or west of here will try to see the "five in one FOV" group (23192, 23553, 25937, 25954, 26985) flaring during the best evening or morning times. All five of them are well within about one degree of sky. Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Mar 11 2003 - 06:27:19 EST