Sattelite Track or Meteor?

[Tom Droege <tdroege@veriomail.com>]

The first frame of the evening taken with TOM had a prominent N-S satellite 
track.  The track was much brighter in I than in V, and was tumbling 
rapidly.  It was taken at 7:39 PM CST on 4 November 2000 with the telescope 
looking roughly 1 degree N and 10 degrees West.  Anyone know of a tumbling 
object going over at that time?  Since it is much brighter in the IR, could 
it be a meteor?  Very tight cork screw image.  Possibly 100 turns in going 
across the frame.

Since TOM is a stereo pair, one should be able to extract the altitude of 
the object if it is below 50 miles or so.  Is anyone interested in this 
object?  Seems to me that one should be able to get a pretty good position 
for the track in each frame since there are so many points.  Also, the 
tumbling would let you line things up in time.   The N-S track is the best 
position for the stereo to work.  Sorry that it was the first frame of the 
night and is not as good as later frames taken when it was darker.

Tom Droege