Superbird A: Why I was confused.

Ron Lee (scubalee@pcisys.net)
Sun, 29 Sep 1996 12:24:40 -0600 (MDT)

A week ago, I was under the impression that I would see
this object one hour later than those in California.  I based 
that on the MISTAKEN thought that the satellite appeared
about 15 degrees farther west for me than for those in CA.

That was due to a confusion while playing with visibilities
for the two sites at different local times.  I just reran Skymap
and found that at the same UT, the difference in position is 
only about 0.1 degree.  Thus the times we see the flashing will
be the same - when using UT!

However, I still think that we should see about a 3.6 minute 
difference in time of max brightness from one day to the next.
The times should become later assuming a 1.9 degree westward
longitude shift per day and the earths approximate 1 degree
per day motion eastward in its orbit.  Over the course of a week,
that would be about 25 minutes.  This does not consider any effect
of the sun's changing declination.

Ron Lee