FreeLists / az-observing / [AZ-Observing] Re: 2nd Magnitude Geostationary Satellite

[Brian Skiff <bas@xxxxxxxxxx>]

     I saw an event like this "many moons ago", which I have now
looked up in my (paper) files.  I remember it because it was the
early days of e-mail (at least for mere mortals), and was included
in a message to Brian Marsden.  Though I certainly didn't know at
the time what it was, it wasn't too much later that it was clear
that this was a "most likely" exlpanation (i.e. very distant orbiting
body).  This was 1985 Aug 20, at 6:33 UT (the printout shows),
and I noticed a mag 3.5 star from the dome slit of the Pluto Camera
(now LONEOS dome) near 21h37m +09 deg.  After a few seconds at
constant brightness it faded to invisibilityi over the course of
about 30 seconds, with no discernable motion naked-eye.
     I've seen at least two other similar events, but both at the -5 Dec
zone, so I realized right away they must be geostationary spacecraft
(or junk), and not "Nova Ceti" or whatever.

\Brian
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