South central USA observers -- heads up! Based on Alan Pickup's information on his site: http://www.wingar.demon.co.uk/satevo/dkwatch/ there's a good chance the decaying GPS 2-21 r2 (22702, 93-42C) will pass over the USA Saturday evening on its last passes. If it survives until 1:06 UTC (7:06 p.m. USA Central Standard Time), it will be making a near-zenith pass at a height of about 205 km (128 miles) above Fort Worth and Dallas, Texas -- and other US cities, obviously. If it survives another orbit, until 2:38 (8:38 p.m. local), it will pass -- totally in shadow -- somewhat farther north at only about 160 km (100 miles) above the surface. And if it were to survive until 4:10 (10:10 p.m. local, after Alan's predicted decay time), it would make an in-shadow pass only about 138 km (86 miles) above Waco, Texas. Alan mentions that OIG predicts it will decay before any of the above passes, but with an error of plus-or-minus one day. I'm pretty sure that I've observed it with binoculars the last two evenings, about +5 at a range of about 576 km (360 miles). It was tumbling to invisible every few seconds. (I guess I can't claim a definitive ID because I didn't take any positions on it.) It's not very big, but it's not often we get three possible passes of an object that might decay at any time! There's a star party scheduled for NW of here tonight, and the weather looks like it will be cooperative.... Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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