Mike Murphy wrote: > I just observed a pass of Phobos-Grunt and the Zenit second stage. The > rocket body was tumbling slowly, and the probe itself appeared to be very > steady as it passed. I did not get good timing information, but the probe > was definitely steady. I saw no other objects along the track the probe > followed. Both objects appeared to be on time with the ephemerides from > the latest element sets. > > I used the latest element sets from Space-Track (Set 013 for the probe and > Set 011 for the rocket body) and TS Kelso's "Trakstar" program to generate > the pointing angles. > > Location: near Dayton, Ohio at 39.8735, -84.1197 and 286 meters elevation. Mike, thank you for your observation. To save interested readers time I will add a few details about your pass, which was on Nov 11, in morning twilight. The s/c (11065A / 37872) was predicted to exit eclipse at about 11:32:02 UTC, at azimuth 258 deg, elevation 13 deg. About 1 min later, it culminated at 17 deg. At about 11:34:57 UTC, it passed below 10 deg elevation near azimuth 180 deg. Phase-angle was excellent, and predicted maximum brightness was magnitude 4, +/- 1, based on s/c dimensions. I know that you did not make timings, but can you recall the approximate duration of your longest continuous period of observation of the spacecraft during the pass? Ted Molczan _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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