About flashing molniya's

Kurt Jonckheere (kjonckheere@mail.unicall.be)
Wed, 25 Mar 1998 21:10:33 +0100 (MET)

Reply to Eric Vondra's viewing of Molniya 3-27 (85117A, #16393) 
and replies from ROB MATSON and Robert Sheaffer about a 12 seconds
flasher :

[...]
>Interesting that a colleague reported a sighting to me from New Mexico
>in December of a bright flashing object that matches up only with a
>Molniya object:
>> The flashes (very bright, fast, and small) were repetitive enough for me to estimate about a  12-second interval.  
[...]
>While there were several possibilities, in my guesstimation the best 
>candidate is:
>18 January 1979 Molniya 3-11 Nation: USSR. Launch Site: Plesetsk . Launch
>COSPAR: 1979-004A = 11240
>Another possibility might be something designated 96060A, but I don't
>know what that is. Its range was 12,340 km. Also, 94081 was at a range
>of 16,327 km.
96- 60 A = Molniya 3-48 = 24640
94- 81 A = Molniya 1T = 23420

>While a Molniya is surlely a large object, I am not aware of any naked-eye
>sightings of reflections from them. The range was 16,494 km. While this is
I have tried to observe Molniya's over the last months.  

My findings are that most of the time these birds are pretty faint,
since very often I don't see anything..., meaning that they are let's
say fainter that mag 12-13.

Molniya types have 6 panels of solar arrays perpendicular to the main body
axis.

Sometimes (favourable orientation of the solar panels) they can be 
fairly bright :
I saw 78- 95 A = 11057 = Molniya 3-10 at 19000 km on 98-1-26 with 
flashes to magnitude +4 !  On 98-2-17 and last Saturday, I didn't saw anything...

So they can become naked eye, but 'some' luck is needed...

Greetings,

Kurt Jonckheere