[AZ-Observing] Re: 2nd Magnitude Geostationary Satellite
- From: Brian Skiff <bas@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2006 19:36:01 -0700 (MST)
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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