Following Ed Cannon's post (10th March 1998) on a naked eye observation of Intelsat 4-7r (73058B) I decided to look for it. After a couple of weeks of grey skies we were treated to a crystal clear sky last night. I picked up Intelsat 4-7r at 20:06 UT, 21/Mar/98 quite easily in 10x50 binoculars At a range of approximately 3500km it showed nice sharp flashes at around Mag +5, with a flash period of 3.2s. I followed for a few minutes & made a flash timing, but lost track of it after I stopped to record the timing. The last reported flash measurements in the PPAS database are from 1983 when its flash period was 2.9s, so it hasn't slowed much in 15 years. It's a nice easy object to find when it's relatively close & well worth a look. I think it's a Centaur rocket, like 71116B / 6779 which I spotted serendiptously when I was observing Gorizont 23 last month. There are many other Centaur rockets (eg all the Intelsat series 4 rockets) up there, some of which are reported as flashing in PPAS database, so these might be worth looking for when the're favourably placed. Best Wishes, Jason P Hatton INSERM U311 ETS Strasbourg 67065 Strasbourg Cedex France 48.538N / 7.731E / 143m