Stephen D LaLumondiere wrote: > > Hi all. > > I spotted Gorizont 14 (1987-040A, #17969) around 03:50 UTC (2000-01-27). It > was flashing to mag +4 and the maxima seemed to be about a second in > duration. Its brightness varied only slightly over the entire time period, > and the flashes were visible from at least 03:50 to 09:31 UTC. I timed the > flash period to be about 85.1 seconds. Last night was my first for this one, > but I hope to see it again tonight. Here is the most recent tle. I've observed Gorizont 14 on a number of occasions & also found that it can be a very bright flasher. However, my flash period timings were around half of your period, suggesting that only alterate flashes were visible from your site, which in turn indicates that two different reflective surfaces are responsible for the flashes; 87- 40 A 00-01-10 20:44 JPH1364.1 0.5 32 42.63 F'F' vm mag+3/8->inv 87- 40 A 00-01-12 20:12 JPH1278.6 0.2 30 42.62 A'A' vm mag+3->inv Alternate flashes are often at least a couple of magnitudes fainter than the primary flashes, so it would seem that the zone of visibility for "even" & "odd" flashes are different. It may be interesting to try observing this satellite at different times of the night to see if the visibility of flashes (brightness & prescence / abscenc of alternate flashes) varies. Best wishes & clear skies, Jason ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Jan 30 2000 - 12:38:16 PST