Superbird A (89-041A, 20040) -- I started looking for it every minute or two beginning about 2:50 UTC, and it finally showed up at about 3:07:28.0 UTC and was visible until about 3:14:45.5. PPAS report (not using last three clicks, which were "even" flashes; of course both odd and even flashes are visible for two or three minutes): 89- 41 A 03-11-25 03:14:19.0 EC 404.0 0.2 18 22.44 +4.0->inv After how many years of watching for Superbird A, I had not managed to recognize until Mike emphasized it yet again that when it's low in our SSE, it flashes at about 3:00 UTC. When a person has no background in this hobby, some of the important things can take a long time to sink in, at least for some of us (i.e., me). A few minutes after Superbird A I thought I'd look for Tele-X by just watching its position without binoculars for three minutes. After not too many seconds there was a very bright flash, at least as bright as Capella (0 mag) it seemed to me. I continued to watch the area, and there was another bright flash about 113 seconds later. I was able to see three more, but the last one was only about +4, and I didn't see any with binoculars. When I checked the position, I found that Tele-X (89-027A, 19919) and Telstar 401 (93-077A, 22927) were at almost the same place (just 0.6 minute separation in RA, none in Dec)! So, given that both can flash very brightly and have slow flash periods, I'm not sure which one it was. But Tele-X is drifting, so it should be settled which it was on the next clear evening (as long as it's soon!). No sign of ETS 6 in my 10x50s. Location: Ney Museum grounds, 30.307N, 97.727W, 150m. My respect for northern observers continues strong. When I got back to my apartment it was about 5 or 6 degrees Celsius, and that feels too cold to me. At least it was calm; Sunday evening at BCRC it was very windy -- very chilly. I'm amazed that people can observe in northern winters! My fingers get too cold, and gloves are too cumbersome. You high-latitude observers are tough! Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from SeeSat-L, send a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@satobs.org List archived at http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Nov 25 2003 - 04:39:07 EST