Last night was our first really clear, moonless evening in a while. TDF 1 (19621, 88-98A), continuing to speed up, was about 31.2 seconds. This might be our last chance from Austin, as it was only about 17 degrees above the WSW horizon. 88- 98 A 00-02-27 05:38:09.5 EC 1030.2 0.3 33 31.22 mag +2->inv My previously reported obs was: 88- 98 A 00-02-19 04:02:47.6 EC 700.3 0.3 22 31.83 This is an interesting object. I observed two separate episodes separated by a gap of up to ten cycles when I couldn't see it using 10x50 binoculars. Soon into the second episode, I observed nine half-period flashes, some of which were one-power. A little later, I saw five maxima with double flashes separated by about 0.3 second. My cycle count for the PPAS report above ended before the double-flash maxima, because they occurred on half-cycle times in relation to earlier full-cycle maxima. I guess it will get into range for the western Pacific in a couple (?) of weeks. Cosmos 1867 (87-60A, 18187) was tumbling with period about 6.2 seconds -- but I only timed eight cycles. Some bright flashes from Iridium 79 (25470, 98-51D). Its one-power flashes the last two times I've seen them have been after culmination, as it was descending into the north. Location was 30.314N, 97.866W, 270m. Well, actually, TDF 1 was observed from in front of Mike McCants' house. 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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Feb 27 2000 - 02:56:04 PST