Re: Decay of #24763 = Cosmos 2340 SL-6 platform
Alan Pickup (alan@wingar.demon.co.uk)
Tue, 13 May 1997 21:15:12 +0100
This decaying object has kept quite well to the predictions I posted two
days ago. Ten OIG elsets since then show a mean residual of 3.9 seconds
when compared with that SatEvo evolution (maximum 5.0 sec).
The latest elset from OIG is:
Cosmos 2340 SL-6 plat 299 x 180 km
1 24763U 97015C 97133.52726792 .01152911 82945-5 49640-3 0 1088
2 24763 62.8473 150.7559 0090142 117.3867 243.6670 16.12759474 5240
which is 3.2 sec early on my prediction.
A new evolution satisfies these elsets with a mean residual of 0.4 sec
and leads to decay at about May 19.1.
Predicted elsets:
Cosmos 2340 SL-6 plat 292 x 179 km
1 24763U 97015C 97134.02304284 .01372455 60814-3 55257-3 0 91088
2 24763 62.8469 148.7724 0086084 117.4766 243.4012 16.14152560 5327
Cosmos 2340 SL-6 plat 279 x 176 km
1 24763U 97015C 97135.01335455 .01592397 91955-3 56038-3 0 91089
2 24763 62.8459 144.7985 0077344 117.6568 243.1276 16.17073177 5487
Cosmos 2340 SL-6 plat 263 x 174 km
1 24763U 97015C 97136.00172442 .01930701 12916-2 56864-3 0 91085
2 24763 62.8447 140.8141 0067503 117.8379 242.8463 16.20534571 5649
Contrary to what I implied in my earlier post, there are some good
*morning* passes (as well as some evening ones) for this object over
many northern latitudes. Three recent obs by Russell Eberst suggest that
its Quicksat intrinsic magnitude is about 6.6, making it brighter than
mag 5 on a decent pass.
Alan
--
Alan Pickup | COSPAR site 2707: 55d53m48.7s N 3d11m51.2s W 156m asl
Edinburgh | Home: alan@wingar.demon.co.uk +44 (0)131 477 9144
Scotland | Royal Observatory: A.Pickup@roe.ac.uk +44 (0)131 668 8224