flashing geosat

Flashing geosat

Last night I saw 94-80A (DFH-3, #23415) from 22:30 to 22:52 UTC. It was
flashing with a period of about two minutes, most of the time it was
invisible (mag >12). The maxima were broad with magnitudes to mag 10.
After some minutes a drift was visible to the east.

At 22:34:24.48 UTC it was at 09:31:30.2  -07d41'25" (2000.0).
It was over longitude -16.23 drifting with +2.5 deg/day.

From Jonathan's Space Report No. 221 1994 Dec  2:
>The first Chinese DFH-3 communications satellite was reportedly launched on
>Nov 29. The launch vehicle is the Chang Zheng (Long March) 3A, which
>made a test flight in February. It placed the DFH-3, built by Germany
>for China, in a 246 x 36052 km x 28.1 deg geostationary transfer orbit.

From No. 223 1994 Dec 15:
>The DFH-3 satellite has begun to raise its
>orbit; on Dec 14 it was in a 6389 x 36064 km x 12.4 deg orbit.

DFH-3
1 23415U 94080A   95079.92647740 -.00000115  00000-0  00000+0 0   533
2 23415   0.0932 288.5192 0087081 229.7497 324.7519  1.00962456   835

Rainer,  long. 9.6626 (east), lat. 53.7695 (north),   9 m