Re: Mystery streak
Rob Matson (Rob_Matson@cpqm.saic.com)
27 Mar 1996 16:59:16 -0700
If what these guys saw was the same thing, you'd have to rule out an
atmospheric phenomenon -- Huntsville's a long way from Massachusetts! Perhaps
the two New England observers saw one thing, and the Huntsville observer
another.
Nevertheless, to satisfy my curiosity I did a search of Alan Thompson's latest
list of 4000+ sats to see if anything might have re-entered at about the right
time, as seen from Huntsville. Didn't come up with anything good. One remote
possibility, that others might want to play with: NORAD #23583. The elements
are a couple weeks old for this guy, and the only name I have for it is
1995-020C. But it DID make a pass in the right part of the sky and parallel
to the horizon moving left to right under the bowl of the Big Dipper. The
10-day old elements (at the time of the pass) gave a time of around 1:35am,
but if you increase the drag you can back that time up to 1:05am with no
problem. Of course, it would help to know what this object is (was?).