In message <07c001c3bed6$cca303a0$08a09d18@cr871925a>, Ted Molczan <molczan@rogers.com> writes >Then there is the matter of attitude control. Russell Eberst reports the >Centaur's brightness varying regularly, with a period of 13 s, and an amplitude >of about 1.5 magnitudes. Peter Wakelin has reported amplitudes of 2 or 3 >magnitudes. Is this evidence of spin stabilization or of a tumble? > >The variation has seemed more subtle to me, but I find it difficult to >concentrate on positional obs and brightness at the same time, so probably I >have not been paying close enough attention to be able to comment with >precision. Although I was concentrating on getting positional obs last night I can add a couple of points re photometric appearance which may be significant. Russell's 13s seems OK (I haven't yet measured it myself) and there were deep, brief minima at about 6s intervals. However, the brightest maxima occurred only one or 2s after alternate minima; a rapid rise in brightness of at least two magnitudes. The secondary maxima occurred about midway between the minima. So although the minima were equally spaced, the maxima were not. Can a simple cylindrical shape display this appearance? Peter -- Peter Wakelin COSPAR 2018 GUNDLETON, Lat 51.0945N Long 1.1188W 124m ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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
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