Re: Occultation by Satellite?

From: b_gimle@algonet.se
Date: Tue Mar 15 2005 - 04:30:41 EST

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    A satellite is small, so for an occultation of 6 s, it must nearly 
    match the speed of Earth rotation - 0.39 km/s at the observer 
    latitude. This is for the eastward component - the N/S component must 
    be near zero. If the satellite has a 12 m dish, the tolerance of these 
    two velocities combined is 2 m/s, or 0.5%. Including the radial 
    component it could theoretically be anything within +- 11 km/s or so, 
    but it would have mainly a W/E component while the velocity is high. 
    It needs a highly elliptic orbit with apogee at 175000 km to have 0.39 
    km/s there, even higher if was approaching/receding. 
    
    These numbers together make the chance very slim, since very few 
    satellites are that high/large, and the orbit would be severely 
    disturbed by the Moon.
    
    >
    >I observed an occultation by a small asteroid (2005 AB) that lasted for 
    >6 seconds
    
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