We just saw an incredibly fast pass of 00-040C = 26409 = "GPS @R-4 Delta 2 r2". Alerted by our daily highfly predictions of brighter near-perigee passes, we saw this objects zip by Betelgeuse and Procyon (the latter at about 00:07.7 UTC on 27 March); it was about magnitude 3 - 3-1/2 and may have been varying slightly. This object has approximate perigee/apogee heights of 177 and 16100 km and when we saw it it was just about 181 km above the ground and 217 km away from us; at its speed of some 9.7 km/s it REALLY flashed by! Before this, the apparently fastest pass we saw was probably Mir a couple of weeks ago. (Because of severe local light pollution, we only look for "highfly" objects expected to be near perigee and therefore within range of our binoculars. Lots of fun!) Clear and dark skies! Ed and Darlene Light Lakewood, New Jersey, USA 40.1075N, 074.2312W, +24m (80 feet) ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Mar 26 2001 - 17:44:08 PST