Bruce MacDonald wrote: > I am certain of the position, but not the exact time. I had > been scanning the sky around eta Cassiopeiae from 18:07. The paths of USA 81 and Cosmos 2082 were very close near Cassiopeia, making it even more likely for you to have seen the latter. > don't think that I waited four minutes before following the > object, but I don't have a record of it. In my experience, it is easy to lose track of time while waiting for an object to appear. Here's a tip: You started looking about 2.5 min before the predicted time, but USA 81's rate of orbital decay is so low, that elsets even a couple months old would have been accurate to within several seconds. By starting your scan closer to the predicted time, say, 20 to 30 s early, you would have been less likely to lose track of the time. You would also have reduced the probability of tracking other satellites that might have shown up ahead of your target, on a similar track - that was not the problem this time, but it is all too common. Ted Molczan ----------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from SeeSat-L, send a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@satobs.org List archived at http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Nov 11 2003 - 19:34:20 EST