Re: Sattelite Track or Meteor?

["Shawn \(Rolling Hills Obs\)" <rollinghillsobs@cfl.rr.com>]

Tom,

Using the German web site Heavens Above (http://www.heavens-above.com/), the
only possible match would be Cosmos 1697 rocket that should have passed over
Chicago (sorry don't know your exact location) at 19:32 - 19:38 CST, moving
N to S west of the meridian just NE of Altair in Aquila.  It was rather far
west, though, with a maximum altitude of only 43 degrees.  Maybe it was some
other piece of space junk, too faint to be tracked by this web site?

Assuming that the cameras in TOM are separated by 1m, an optimally placed
(overhead/moving N-S) satellite would produce a 1.0 arcsec parallax at 200
km (a realistic LEO height for misc. junk).  It might be possible to
measurable this, remembering that there'd be additive errors on the
measurements from both cameras.  If I remember correctly, we're seeing about
0.4 arcsec residuals in the astrometry with the Mark IVs.

Shawn


----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Droege" <tdroege@veriomail.com>
To: <tass@listserv.wwa.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 05, 2000 8:02 AM
Subject: Sattelite Track or Meteor?


> 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
>
>
>