Mike and a guest and I were able to see without magnification a number of flashes from Hipparcos (89-062B, 20169) low in our SSE, when it was (from memory) very roughly around RA 3:00-4:15, Dec -29 to -31. Its range was a little less than 5000 km. Cosmos 1030 (78-083A, 11015) continues to do a good series of one-power flashes low in the SSW as it heads south towards perigee just a few minutes earlier each night. Earlier in the pass it is too faint for my binoculars. Superbird A (89-041A, 20040) -- I was able to see a few of its flashes without binoculars, but they weren't easy, when it was near RA 2:35. The sky was superb for a suburban site, with the winter Milky Way faintly visible from Cygnus to Cassiopeia. DSP USA 39 (89-046A, 20066) was seen flashing "early", a few minutes before 4:00 UTC, about +7.0 at brightest. UARS (91-063B, 21701), well below Polaris, flared to +1.0. The above were early December 24 UTC. The previous evening we saw unexpectedly a several seconds long very bright flare from OAO 3 (Copernicus, 72-065A, 06153) in the middle of the Summer Triangle (Vega, Deneb, Altair). BCRC observing site: 30.315N, 97.866W, 280m. To whom it may concern: Happy Holiday(s)! Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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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