Brian Webb said: >I saw a strange object this evening while I was using my telescope. The >looked like a satellite, but was going from east to west. Here are the >particulars: > >Date (UTC): 97 NOV 29 >Time (UTC): 02:17 (right after the end of astronomical twilight) >Location: Thousand Oaks, California >Latitude: 34 deg 13 min 30 sec N >Longitude: 118 deg 53 min 47 sec W What Brian saw was OVI 1-5, one of the objects in retrograde orbits. Most, if not all, are pretty small because of the huge penalty of lifting something without the benefit of the earth's 'push'. >I have 18 months of experience observing satellites, but I've never seen >anything like this. If you want to see more retrograde objects, run predictions for elsets with inclinations > 90. OV 1-5's inclination is 144.6346 ! OV 1-5 1.4 0.7 0.0 6.2 v 1053 x 982 1 02122U 66025B 97330.21957526 .00000293 00000-0 45756-4 0 5312 2 02122 144.6346 87.9376 0047512 181.2864 178.7681 13.64989613579274 -------- To make it easier to find the retrograde objects, a TLE manipulation program can sort an elset file by certain attributes, such as inclination. TLEMOP (for MS-DOS) is one that I use for this purpose. It can be found at: ftp://ftp.satellite.eu.org/pub/sat/programs/ibmpc/tlemop1z.zip Craig Cholar 3432P@VM1.CC.NPS.NAVY.MIL