First, I want to echo others in expressing condolences to Bart for his loss -- and very much appreciation for going "above and beyond" in thinking about SeeSat-L during such a difficult time. A while ago, 2002 June 20 03:15:20-03:16:20 UTC, I saw a fairly fast-moving, northbound UNID. I was looking at MSX (23851, 96-024A) without binoculars, and this object caught my eye, perhaps very roughly at alt. 70, azi 60. I tracked it with binoculars. It was tumbling on the order of 20 to 30 seconds. I'm pretty sure that it went near RA 19:23, Dec +52.7 at about 3:16:20; its direction of motion there was close to straight down. Using alldat.tle and Findsat, I get no candidates that seem to me to match well. This was from 30.307N, 97.727W, 150m. Earlier tonight had a very nice, very bright one-power perpendicular crossing of eastbound Atlas Centaur 2 (00694, 63-047A) and southbound Meteor 1-7 Rk (04850, 71-003B). NOSS triangles. NOSS 2-2 (91-076 C, D, and E; 21799, 21808, 21809) is/are making southbound evening passes now. A while ago I was lucky to see them while our summer-night clouds were still just getting started. The "outlier" was the brightest and was easy to see without binoculars, but the other two were almost as bright and would have been visible without binoculars except for the moonlight. I saw them from outside my apartment, 30.309N, 97.728W, 150m. Sunday night local time I saw what must have been a flash from Starshine 3 (26929, 01-043A)! The time was about 2:19:51.50 June 17 UTC. I was watching its predicted track without binoculars and saw a fast- moving southbound zero magnitude flash that lasted at least 0.5 second. I was surprised! I was in San Antonio, Texas (29.400N, 98.660W, 210m). Binoculars -- I want to add to the discussion of a few days ago that in another forum I've read that in very light-polluted areas (and in bright moonlight, and for older eyes), a smaller exit pupil (e.g., 5 mm instead of 7) might be somewhat better due to providing somewhat more contrast in the field of view. (I'm not sure how applicable that is with point sources like satellites.) This would be 10x50 (what I use), 8x40, or 7x35 as opposed to 10x70, 9x63, 8x56, or 7x50 (all ideal for younger eyes in darker skies). If one is choosing between 8x40 and 7x35, I would recommend 8x40 (or 8x42 or 8.5x44). I find that for most satellite purposes, the shaking of the 10x is tolerable, especially for tracking bright satellites. It becomes a real problem when I'm trying to hold them still to look for a faint satellite at a certain RA-Dec position. 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/sat/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jun 25 2002 - 20:50:33 EDT