Regarding IGS 1B: >could it have flared to this extent ?.....Calsky puts it as >mag 3-4 ! A while back Mike McCants and I saw it at about +2 magnitude at a range of 1300 km: http://satobs.org/seesat/Jun-2003/0031.html and I'm pretty sure that I've seen it flare on other occasions. This page says it's a synthetic aperture radar payload: http://www.spaceandtech.com/spacedata/logs/2003/2003-009a_igs1b_sum.shtml However, on the other hand, FAS hint if not says that it may be very similar to Ikonos 1, which is a visual imaging payload: http://www.fas.org/spp/guide/japan/military/imint/ This page (with a huge URL) has images of Ikonos 1: http://lmms.external.lmco.com/photos/commercial_space/comm_remote_sensing_ik onos/comm_remote_sensing_ikonos.html That's the Ikonos link on this page: http://lmms.external.lmco.com/photos/commercial_space/index.html Maybe both Space and Tech and FAS can both be correct? I read that IGS 1B has a four-day repeat track cycle. Mike and I observed for a while Saturday PM at BCRC but were shut down early by our seasonal low clouds. Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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