My recent observations (using one-power) of Iridium 14 (97-30A, 24836) have puzzled me. It seems to be doing a phase shift, or maybe two (or even three?) of them. I'm somewhat uncertain as to the object's rotation period, although I think it's about 6.5 seconds. Here's the series of times from March 10, observed from Austin (30.31N, 97.73W, 150m): 6.49 6.50 7.41 1.82 4.67 1.79 4.71 1.79 6.50 6.57 7.54 6.69 6.24 The split cycles (1-4 or 4-1) always begin and end with the short 1.75-second partial cycle. Also, as they begin one is brighter, then they are nearly equal in magnitude, and finally the other is brighter. The brightest flashes are in negative magnitudes, possibly -3 or -4 (?). Here are the times from last night (2000-03-24 UTC) from Austin -- a nice pass in spite of it racing to stay ahead of a fairly large cloud: 0.00 (= 1:31:07.99) 6.38 6.43 6.45 6.50 6.45 6.48 6.47 6.53 7.38 1.98 4.44 **** 6.51 **** 6.44 1.86 4.67 1.78 4.64 1.86 4.66 1.78 4.75 1.76 4.66 1.75 4.80 1.70 4.75 1.75 4.75 1.69 6.49 6.52 6.53 6.43 (= 1:33:45.57) (The two instances of "****" mark when I should have clicked on a secondary flash that I did in fact see.) I have similar sets of times for March 13 and 20. I'll add my vote to Don Gardner's on Cosmos 2367 (26040, 99-72A). It was about the same magnitude as Castor and Pollux on its very good pass over here last night. Luck was favorable again in spite of a lot of clouds. (The only other one I saw last night was HST.) Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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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