In a message dated Fri, 29 Mar 2002 8:32:06 PM Eastern Standard Time, Jonathan T Wojack <tlj18@juno.com> writes: On 3-30 (UT), I went outside to see the Shenzhou 3 rocket at ~0008 UT. > This time, I was successful. It was to make a high pass (~80 degrees > elevation), and I made a mad dash to get a chair out. ///////////////////////////////// Same passes, about 120km to the west. The Shenzhou 3 Rocket is in a slow roll. I had a rough flash times of about 11-16 seconds. The first cycle (beginning at 0:07:48.45 UTC, 30 March) consisted of 7.25 of 0 mag followed by 5.75 of inv. The next cycle was 14.25 at a brightness peaking at -1 mag followed by 2.88 secs inv. The next 3 cycles were difficult to determine because it did not go completely inv. They were 7.83, 10.93 and 15.3 secs respectively. Although there was a fair amount of ambient light it was clear to me that this object was tumbling. The pass itself was NW -> E - max elevation 55 deg in the NNE. Shenzhou 3 followed with a nice W->E pass that was nearly directly overhead beginning at 0:29 UTC, 30 March. When it was low in the west – near Aries – it was probably no more than +6.0 mag. It was not visible at 1x until it reached an elevation of about 40 deg in the west. As it passes directly overhead it reached a maximum brightness of about 1.5 mag. As it approached Leo, high in the east, it was clearly brighter than gamma-Leo – probably 1.7 or so. I followed it until it entered eclipse around 00:33UTC Observing site: Mt. Pleasent - near Woodstock, MD 39.3150 N, 76.8756 W, 100mASL There was a moderate haze but no moon. Cheers, Don Gardner 39.1799 N, 76.8406 W, 100m ASL http://hometown.aol.com/mir16609/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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