Amazing! Congrats to you. I'm going thru the eccen files. Right now I'm checking out Satellite Hunting software, and looking at suitable objects at perigee. If not perigee, maybe at <4000 range. I remember the 28 degree Centuars were visable at >10,000 range at times, if they had rapid flash periods. Just like a beacon. No telling if higher inclination objects will be tumbeling as those big rockets.. Again, amazing experience, and thanks for shareing with us. What a challange, Ive gotta try that. Jim ----- Original Message ----- From: MALEY, PAUL D. (JSC-DO) <paul.d.maley1@jsc.nasa.gov> To: 'SEESAT-L' <SeeSat-L@blackadder.lmsal.com> Cc: 'Gil Moore' <gilmoore12@aol.com> Sent: Monday, March 06, 2000 10:49 AM Subject: Observing the "extreme" perigee of 20698 > Last week I attended a conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico from March 1-3. > Before leaving Houston, I ran predictions for a number of visible satellites > and found that the perigee of the auxiliary motor 20698 was oddly positioned > just to the west and south of the city. The interesting thing about the > motor is that its RCS is about 1 meter squared which was similar to that of > the recently decayed STARSHINE. I sent an email to Alan to find out the > decay date of this object to see if the decay was close at hand. Luckily it > was not. > > But the mean motion was indeed increasing gradually, so I had to run > continuing elsets to verify whether the perigee was really where it was > supposed to be due to its low altitude. In fact, QUICKSAT produced altitudes > ranging from 123 to 132 km (77 to 83 miles) altitude on the mornings of both > March 2 and March 3. The first opportunity was far to the west but a storm > moved in and clouded over the whole area. Luckily the sky cleared late on > March 2. I did not have a PC with me so I resorted to finding a public > library that had an internet connection so I could try to get the latest > TLEs from OIG. Yet, when I got on the machine I found the language was > entirely in Spanish and the Gateway PC did not have DOS! I finally had some > elsets faxed to me and located a PC belonging to a conference attendee. > Elsets showed that the perigee was gradually rising but the lighting was > going to be marginally perfect. Earth shadow exit point was anti-sun 43 > degrees above the west north west. I decided to drive 48km (30 miles) south > to Belen where the motor was to fly directly overhead. I had seen this motor > before at a range of 3200km where it was magnitude 9.8, so I had estimated > that it could be as bright as +3 at perigee. > > As the pass time of 12h52m UT on March 3 approached I found a dirt road > 1.6km (2 miles)west of the interstate highway at Belen. Rats were seen > scurrying across the road in the darkness so I made sure to position myself > on top of the rental car. Stars to magnitude 4 were faintly visible, and > the thin crescent moon appeared low in the east as dawn was starting to > creep in. Just prior to 12h53m a white dot at magnitude 3.5 shot out of the > earth's shadow in Ursa Major. It gradually brightned to +3 before fading > quickly at the zenith. It was visible for about 16 seconds and I was able to > use my Sony camcorder to record part of its flyover [to be shown at EUROSOM > 4, whenever that is]. This morning I queried existing historical elsets on > OIG and it appears the actual height was more like 147km (92 miles) or so. > Either way, the experience was very exciting and this is the lowest I have > ever seen an object that was still in orbit. > > Paul > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' > in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org > http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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