New Unkown Molniya
Tony Beresford (starman@camtech.net.au)
Sun, 02 May 1999 13:56:34 +0930
Inspection of the films exposed during the middle of April
for the Eastern Australian Fireball network (EAFN) by
Rob McNaught revealed a flaring satellite passing over
network camera at Bugaldie, Mudgee and Coonamble.
Overlaps between exposures narrowed the time on April 12
to between 1752- 1812UT. Considerations about fitting in later
exposures reduced the start of this interval to 1758.
Assuming an orbit similar to the known
member of the constellation, but with a node 120 degrees away, and
an epoch time fiddled to make the satellite position over bugaldie on
April 12, made a good fit. Predictions on this orbit were e-mailed
to Rob McNaught by 11h Ut May 1. The object was observed with
7x50 binoculars from the Observatories on Siding Spring mountain by
Rob only 3 minutes late on predictions, at 1641-1652 UT May 1. He made 6 position fixes.
An orbit fit to his observations ( by George Lewis), assuming the same
mean motion as previous object gives
unkmol2
1 99009L 99121MOL 99121.69540313 +.00000214 +00000+0 +00000+0 6 00140
2 99009 63.8128 265.1828 7060040 270.5360 11.2469 2.00637196001590
[Note faking put in catalog number and InternationalID]
The object currently becomes sunlit going North at elevations of about
58 degrees to the North of Bugaldie , so range is already high , about 5100Km.
The reported brightness was mag +6 at a range of 5200KM
Tony Beresford