hello Don and others, Mir16609@aol.com wrote about ETS-6 = 91- 46 A = 23230 : > I managed to time some ETS-6 flashes this evening between 03:55 and 03:58 UTC > 8 January. The problem I'm having is the proper PPAS format for a clear > pattern of a primary flash (-1 mag) followed 2.8 seconds later by a secondary > flash (+3 mag) with an 8.4 sec delay before the pattern repeats. The PPAS format was created mainly to analyze the evolution of the flashing period, so the most important thing is the MAIN flashing period which is 11.2 seconds in your example. Times and magnitudes of secundary flashes can change during the pass / from pass to pass / from location to location. To describe secundary flashes you can use the remarks column like Sue Worden did below: F indicating the main primary flash, f the secundary flash, the ' after the primary F indicates the flashes timed. You can also report your timings of secundary flashes like : 11.2=2.8+8.4. 94- 56 A 99-09-18 02:54 SJW 359.5 0.1 31 11.60 F'fF'f mag+2->+4->inv b Apart from ETS-6 being particularly bright sometimes, it has also been accelerating for a long time and seems to have reached its mininum right now. So accurate measurements are interesting to see when the period will start going up. -- Gorizont 23 = 21533 = 91- 46 A As already mentioned by Rob Matson, this slowly drifting geostationary sat flashing to mag +5 is over America right now. Mike McCants observed it a week ago confirming the current acceleration. I hope we can get some more observations from the bunch of SeeSat people over there to find out how long the current speed up will take. The first observed acceleration took about 300 days, between the second half of 1997 and the first half of 1998. The second one probably lasted about 200 days. Latest observations : 91- 46 A 99-12-07 JPH 51.59 91- 46 A 99-12-09 21:20 KJ 51.584 +-0.002 91- 46 A 99-12-10 17:55 KJ 51.576 +-0.002 91- 46 A 99-12-10 21:43 MJ 0.1 27 51.569 F'F', T=1392.36 91- 46 A 99-12-14 18:48 MJ 0.1 29 51.561 T=1495.27 91- 46 A 99-12-14 PDV 51.55 91- 46 A 99-12-15 19:30 MJ 0.1 39 51.536 T=2009.91 91- 46 A 99-12-15 PDV 51.55 91- 46 A 99-12-19 PDV 51.53 91- 46 A 99-12-21 22:14 MJ 0.1 30 51.527 T=1545.82,err=+-0.05 91- 46 A 00-01-02 02:00 MM 3292.7 0.4 64 51.45 [observations from Jason Hatton, Michel Jacquesson, Patrick Devreese, Mike Mccants and myself] -- For graphs of both, see my homepage. -- Please report your observations in PPAS format to ppas@lists.satellite.eu.org. Kurt Jonckheere (kjon@mail.dma.be) http://bewoner.dma.be/kjon ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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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