Ok, got a better process here. Saw 15 geosats, 4 naked
eye visible around +3 magnitude. The following results
are from Saturday morning, Oct 16 from watching the
Clarke Orbit from 2:30 UT to 8:00 UT from Plano, TX,
USA. The clearest night in years based on EPA air
quality measurements that I track each night as well
as cloud cover and water vapor. Getting help from
Brian (Skwise) and Ed Cannon I was able to download
some freeware and printed out a star chart of the
general area of northern Cetus. I picked 5 different
locations (fixes)that the sats drifted through and
timed them with a Brookstone WWV radio-corrected
clock. The five fixes (generally either dim stars that
sats went in front of or half way points between two
stars):
Fixes Right Ascension Declination
A 0h 50m 45.7s -5d 17' 02"
B 1h 00m 00.2s -5d 17' 39"
C 1h 04m 52.2s -5d 17' 11"
D 1h 10m 55.3s -5d 17' 25"
E 1h 22m 51.7s -5d 17' 41"
F 1h 30m 40.2s -5d 16' 32"
And the timings in UT (hhmmss):
Fixes
A B C D E F
Sat A 044425 045330 045828 050425 051545 052409
Sat B 051100 052013 052525 053116 054305 055050
Sat C 060922
Sat D 061030 061706 062908 063624
Sat E 061934
Sat F 063439 063934 064535 065720 070512
Sat G 065125 065632 070224 071427
Sat H 070024 070941 071427 072027 073207 074013
Sat I 073109
Sat J 074030 074838
Sat K 074547 075030 075639
Naked-Eye Visible Geosats:
Sat A Fixes E, F
Sat B Fixes D, E
Sat F Fixes D, E, F
Sat H Fixes E, F
Notes:
Sat D appeared to be 3 or more satellites with each
individually glinting - very cool!
Sat G appeared to be two sats.
No data for a Sat and a Fix means the sat wasn't
visible in my 7x50 binocs.
I've given allot of data for each satellite in hopes
to reduce the ambiguity of their location with that of
their neighbors. Also you may be able to derive an
error of measurement from these data.
So what are Sats A - H ???
Jeff Umbarger
Location Plano TX, USA +33.06946(N), -96.76807(W)
Central Daylight Time (GMT - 5 ), 700 ft. MSL
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