I did a plane search for USA129 using Teds earliest orbit -- I think it was #71008 - starting at 19h00UT and eventually stopped by clouds at 2038UT. Several satellites were seen but all going wrong way etc. However one satellite may be a possibility. I am unable to find a match in the elements sets I have so report it on the off-chance that it may be the missing satellite. It was seen crossing the edge of the field so I only had a short arc and in addition there is some field distortion which I tried to minimise by using stars in the immediate vicinity. The magnitude and direction were reasonable but I got the impression it may have been moving a bit slower than expected. A rough calculation gives an inclination of about 95.8 degrees and altitude 928 kilometres which does not match USA129 so I am not convinced it is USA129. Herewith the data: (Usual observing site) 28 Dec 2003 20h14m31.0s UT RA 08h53m02s Dec -46d41m40s (J2000) Mag +06.5 steady 20h14m40.0s 08h43m47s -45d05m50s +06.5 steady Cheers Greg ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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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