Prompted by recent postings by Ed Cannon and Rob Matson, we tried to see ETS-6 (94-056A = 23230) last night (01/07/2000 EST) just before shadow entry, which was to be at around 04:07.3 UTC on 01/08/2000. Fortunately, we had our binoculars because, at least in our 4th magnitude sky, we wouldn't have seen anything naked eye. When we started looking with our binoculars, we first noted a flash at about 04:04:40 UTC below beta Eridani and from then until shadow entry the object flashed every 4 or so seconds - every other maximum MAY have been brighter than the intervening ones implying a period of about 8 seconds, but we're not positive. The brightest flash we saw was no brighter than about 6th magnitude, hardly the dazzler Rob described - I imagine the latitude of the observer (strictly, the satellite-o-centric latitude) has a major influence on the brightness of the flashes. Regardless, for we who "specialize" in LEO binocular objects, it was exciting to see something 5300 miles [8500 km] away. Clear and dark skies! Ed and Darlene Light Lakewood, NJ, USA 40.107 N, 074.232 W ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 : Sat Jan 08 2000 - 07:12:19 PST