Obs. 25 March

Mir16609@aol.com
Thu, 25 Mar 1999 23:53:09 EST

Hello everyone.

Iridium 20 was not easy to acquire for some reason this evening.   It gave
some bright, if not brilliant flashed centered at 00:32:28 UTC, 26 March.

While searching for Cosmos 2056 Rk I managed to see a very fast moving UNID
(mag 5.0 to 5.5) rising between the Dippers at 00:42 UTC (26 March).  It
wasn't difficult to identify it as the oldest object on Alan Pickup's Decay
List:
FTV3502 Scout                                    343 x 329
1 00388U 62039D   99084.56147123  .00219503  00000-0  12976-2 0  6015
2 00388  98.5505 289.9743 0010777 173.3855 186.8208 15.77967567968353

Negative obs on Gorizonts 23 and 24.  They are probably not easy binocular
objects.

Superbird A gave a nice bright flash (probably a 1x flash) around 03:14:05 UTC
26 March.  I observed a second flash about +4.0 mag at 03:15:39.UTC.   I am
hoping that the same prediction rule holds as last year:   The bright flashes
are about a minute later each night.

Cheers
Don Gardner  39.1796 N, 76.8419 W, 34m ASL
Homepage: http://hometown.aol.com/mir16609/
Space Day - 6 May 1999; http://www.spaceday.com/