Fast Flashing 2004-021B

PZeller66 wrote:

Thanks for the confirmation! I was starting to think that my eyes were
playing tricks on me early that morning.

I had the same impression when I saw it, too.

I'm assuming that the constant look to its brightness was because of it's
orientation. Maybe I was first seeing it at a nearly right angle to its axis of
rotation, and then when it was closer to the horizon I was seeing it more from
the side, tumbling end over end.

That's my guess, too. It's the upper stage of a Russian Zenit-2
booster; astronautix.com describes that stage as being 3.9 meters
in diameter and 11.5 meters long, which allows a lot of change
in its observed area as it tumbles. My guess is that it did
something odd when it vented excess propellant after reaching
orbit.

I spotted it again less than an hour ago, in clear skies. The
flashing is still impressive.

--Bill Thompson

Yesterday I wrote:

I would have seen this one by now but for clouds every morning
(moisture streaming in from the Gulf of Mexico). I hope too
see it before too long, because over time it will slow down.
Okean O Rk (25861, 99-39B) started out the same way:

http://satobs.org/seesat/Jul-1999/0307.html

So, less than an hour after I posted yesterday, I saw it from
here through thin, broken clouds. It appeared pretty steady at
first, but the rotation became very apparent as it went on to
the north. Very neat!

By the way, besides Okean O Rk, quite a few other Zenits started
out as fast tumblers. They have all slowed down or even stopped.

Ed Cannon - - Austin, Texas, USA
(Remove "donotspam".)

Yesterday I wrote:

I would have seen this one by now but for clouds every morning
(moisture streaming in from the Gulf of Mexico). I hope too
see it before too long, because over time it will slow down.
Okean O Rk (25861, 99-39B) started out the same way:

http://satobs.org/seesat/Jul-1999/0307.html

So, less than an hour after I posted yesterday, I saw it from
here through thin, broken clouds. It appeared pretty steady at
first, but the rotation became very apparent as it went on to
the north. Very neat!

By the way, besides Okean O Rk, quite a few other Zenits started
out as fast tumblers. They have all slowed down or even stopped.

Ed Cannon - - Austin, Texas, USA
(Remove "donotspam".)

Paul, regarding your problem with SeeSat-L, have you contacted
the list administrator? There's an e-mail link in the first
paragraph of this page:

I haven't tried that yet, but thanks for posting the link.

The email that I get back from the list reads,
"Your post to the mailinglist appears to contain an attachment or enriched
text...
Such posts are not accepted on this mailinglist. please resubmit your post as a
plain text document.
You may have to reconfigure your mail-program."

I haven't sent attachments and I've tried to see what the enriched text
business is about...I'll try the link.

Paul Z
Indianapolis

Paul, regarding your problem with SeeSat-L, have you contacted
the list administrator? There's an e-mail link in the first
paragraph of this page:

I haven't tried that yet, but thanks for posting the link.

The email that I get back from the list reads,
"Your post to the mailinglist appears to contain an attachment or enriched
text...
Such posts are not accepted on this mailinglist. please resubmit your post as a
plain text document.
You may have to reconfigure your mail-program."

I haven't sent attachments and I've tried to see what the enriched text
business is about...I'll try the link.

Paul Z
Indianapolis

"PZeller66" wrote in message
...
Paul, regarding your problem with SeeSat-L, have you contacted
the list administrator? There's an e-mail link in the first
paragraph of this page:

I haven't tried that yet, but thanks for posting the link.

The email that I get back from the list reads,
"Your post to the mailinglist appears to contain an attachment or
enriched
text...
Such posts are not accepted on this mailinglist. please resubmit your post
as a
plain text document.
You may have to reconfigure your mail-program."

I haven't sent attachments and I've tried to see what the enriched text
business is about...I'll try the link.

Paul Z
Indianapolis

"PZeller66" wrote in message
...
Paul, regarding your problem with SeeSat-L, have you contacted
the list administrator? There's an e-mail link in the first
paragraph of this page:

I haven't tried that yet, but thanks for posting the link.

The email that I get back from the list reads,
"Your post to the mailinglist appears to contain an attachment or
enriched
text...
Such posts are not accepted on this mailinglist. please resubmit your post
as a
plain text document.
You may have to reconfigure your mail-program."

I haven't sent attachments and I've tried to see what the enriched text
business is about...I'll try the link.

Paul Z
Indianapolis

Paul Zeller wrote:

"PZeller66" wrote in message
...
Paul, regarding your problem with SeeSat-L, have you contacted
the list administrator? There's an e-mail link in the first
paragraph of this page:

I haven't tried that yet, but thanks for posting the link.

The email that I get back from the list reads,
"Your post to the mailinglist appears to contain an attachment or
enriched
text...
Such posts are not accepted on this mailinglist. please resubmit your post
as a
plain text document.
You may have to reconfigure your mail-program."

I haven't sent attachments and I've tried to see what the enriched text
business is about...I'll try the link.

I administer SeeSat-L, and when I saw that you were having problems posting
messages, I sent you messages - on May 24 and Jun 22, which apparently you
did not receive.

I regret that you are having problems posting, but perhaps I can help.
AOL's default e-mail format is html, but for security reasons, SeeSat-L
automatically rejects all but plain text messages.

Here is a site which explains how to send plain text from various versions
of AOL:

http://members.aol.com/adamkb/aol/mailfaq/sendhtml.html

Judging by your e-mail header, it appears that you are using AOL 8.0. If so,
then according to the above site, that version may be incapable of sending
anything other than html. AOL solved the problem in version 9.0, and it
works fine with SeeSat-L.

I hope this information proves helpful, and I look forward to your
contributions to the list.

Ted Molczan

Paul Zeller wrote:

"PZeller66" wrote in message
...
Paul, regarding your problem with SeeSat-L, have you contacted
the list administrator? There's an e-mail link in the first
paragraph of this page:

I haven't tried that yet, but thanks for posting the link.

The email that I get back from the list reads,
"Your post to the mailinglist appears to contain an attachment or
enriched
text...
Such posts are not accepted on this mailinglist. please resubmit your post
as a
plain text document.
You may have to reconfigure your mail-program."

I haven't sent attachments and I've tried to see what the enriched text
business is about...I'll try the link.

I administer SeeSat-L, and when I saw that you were having problems posting
messages, I sent you messages - on May 24 and Jun 22, which apparently you
did not receive.

I regret that you are having problems posting, but perhaps I can help.
AOL's default e-mail format is html, but for security reasons, SeeSat-L
automatically rejects all but plain text messages.

Here is a site which explains how to send plain text from various versions
of AOL:

http://members.aol.com/adamkb/aol/mailfaq/sendhtml.html

Judging by your e-mail header, it appears that you are using AOL 8.0. If so,
then according to the above site, that version may be incapable of sending
anything other than html. AOL solved the problem in version 9.0, and it
works fine with SeeSat-L.

I hope this information proves helpful, and I look forward to your
contributions to the list.

Ted Molczan

Thanks very much for taking the time to write and provide the link! If I'm
having problems with the Internet I usually assume it has something to do with
America Online.

I've enjoyed reading the posts on SeeSat-L and learned much from them, though
I admit I've barely started the learning curve when it comes to serious
satellite observing. My observing so far has been limited to finding
interesting objects on the Heavens Above site that are passing over my area and
then going out to look at them, making magnitude estimates (this is just second
nature to someone who has followed variable stars for years) and getting a
rough idea of the rotation period if the object I look at is flashing.

I'll try version 9.0 (or take the advice of friends and get a new ISP) and
see if this works, though I'm not sure that anything I report could be
considered good data yet.

Thanks again,

Paul Zeller
Indianapolis, IN