Last night during a busy geosat-watching session, Mike McCants found what certainly looked like a flashing Centaur, period about 1.18 second, in a near-geosynchronous orbit, and very near the geostationary declination. There is a problem, in that it was only a very few minutes from shadow entry. But except for the moonlight, it appears that we will have good weather for at least one more night. TDRS 1 (13969, 83-026B) was visible at one-power, about +3.5, for a couple of minutes, a degree or two from iota Ceti, which is at RA 00:19:40.5, Dec. -8.83, 2000), at around 2:40, plus or minus a few minutes. Mike counted 32 geosats in his notes. I didn't see every one of those, but using his telescope and finder scope as well as my binoculars, I noted a *minimum* of 28. All five of the "group of five" (DBS/DTV 2 and 3, DTV 1-R, AMSC 1 and GE 4) fit within the field of view of Mike's high-power eyepiece; five geosats within less than .75 degree field of view. Observing site was 30.315N, 97.866W, 280m. Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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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