Last night as we were preparing to watch for the NOSS 3-1 pair, Ed and I spotted an object flashing to brighter than zero magnitude every 7.5 seconds. In between flashes it was about magnitude 8. The flashes did not seem "sharp" to me - they seemed "square". On for a fraction of a second and then off. The flashes were mainly white in the 8 inch telescope, but they had a green tinge. Later the object was identified as Cosmos 2105 (#20941, 1990-99A). 2006 Sep 26 Times are UT Hrs Min Alt Azi Range(miles) 2 18 56 106 3745 2 19 53 109 3649 2 20 50 113 3565 2 21 46 116 3494 2 22 42 119 3436 2 23 38 121 3394 2 24 34 123 3369 (shadow entry) This object is in a nearly 12-hour period, so we are anticipating a repeat performance tonight about 5 minutes earlier. A previous measurement of the tumble period was 7.2 seconds in 2004. About 2:58 last night I was able to see a flash from ItalSat 1 (#21055, 1991-3A). We watched it for about 13 minutes as the flashes got brighter then fainter. The brightest flash was at 3:04:27. The flash period was 59.41 seconds. A previous observation was August 17 at 5:02 with a period of 59.0 seconds. It appears to be flashing about 3 minutes earlier each night. Mike McCants BCRC 30.31N, 97.87W (Austin, TX) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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