Ed will not return until tomorrow. Brad Young posted: >I had no luck with this one from Tulsa, tried till 10:15 local time. Ed first spotted LES 8 about 1:55 UT Oct 1 (8:55 CDT Sep 30). We watched it for nearly an hour and it had faded from magnitude 2 down to only about magnitude 5.5. Since it was visible for such a long time, I would assume that the rotation axis was causing the flashes to go in an east/west direction. If so, its flashes might be visible only much earlier or later from your latitude. Or perhaps not at all. The flash period on Oct 1 was about 193.5 seconds, but when we spotted it again on Oct 3, the flash period had increased to 198.5 seconds. >No luck for me, Ed, how bright, when? Although the nominal shadow entry time for XM-1 and XM-2 is about 7:00 UT (2AM CDT), we are seeing them about magnitude 7 or 8 about 5:00 UT (12AM CDT). >Still no luck, I have yet to see a "12 hr orbit" sat. Ed, how long before >shadow entry would you say it (Cosmos 2105) starts? Last night I watched naked eye for the flashes and saw the first ones very near 1:49 UT (8:49 CDT). This is 7 or 8 minutes before shadow entry low in our southeast. But the sun-satellite-observer angles must be very critical for this object. So it's possible that the flashes could only be seen from your latitude from a longitude that is many degrees to your west. >Thanks for the heads up. Sad that max geosat season hits mid-30 latitudes at >full moon, but looks like some are flaring bright enough to see anyway! And, of course, many can be seen in my 8 inch telescope. The BrazilSats are interesting. Last night I happened across BrazilSat B2 (#23536, 95 16A) 30 minutes before its shadow entry and it was varying between magnitude 7 and 8 with a period of about 2 seconds. BrazilSat B4 looked like this about 30 minutes before its shadow entry time the night before last. This matches observations of these objects made in previous years. Galaxy 11, GE 1, GE 3, and GE 4 have been seen flaring to be very bright 2 or 3 hours before their shadow entry time. The PAS 3R and PAS 6B pair are also quite bright just before shadow entry time low in the east. Mike McCants Austin, TX Lat 30.32N, Long 97.87W ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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