ETS-6 and Telstar 401
Ed Cannon (edcannonutaustin@netscape.net)
16 Sep 99 05:29:52 CDT
Wednesday night local time, by accident I saw a bright flasher in binoculars,
and the flashes (primary and one secondary maximum) proved to be easily
visible at one-power. Neither Mike McCants nor I had predictions for it, but
Mike knew that it had to be ETS-6 (94-56A, 23230). It very gradually grew
fainter as we watched it for over 20 minutes.
94- 56 A 99-09-15 03:45:12 EC 1359.8 0.2 117 11.622 mag+3->inv
Thursday night local time, Mike pointed the telescope at the spot where
Telstar 401 (93-77A, 22927) was supposed to be, and after he and I watched the
spot for a few minutes each, its maxima did become faintly visible against
passing stars. The flash period is now roughly 169 seconds. I would have put
a larger uncertainty in the PPAS format, but the input program I use allows
only 9.9 seconds. In any case, the flash period is significantly shorter than
the last time that I saw it. Unfortunately, this one seems to be pretty
geosynchronous, and its inclination is just 2.00, so it's not available to
everyone -- at least not for a long time.
93- 77 A 99-09-16 04:44:55 EC 2022.1 9.9 12 169 mag+10->inv
Location for both was 30.314N, 97.866W, 280 m.
Sent to PPAS separately.
Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA
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