Re: Just Looking at Data

[Doug Welch <welch@physics.mcmaster.ca>]

Tom,

If these dots are oriented east-west, then you may have stumbled
across a geosynchronous satellite. If it had a zero-inclination
orbit, it would be found at a declination of about -6 deg from
your latitude (I haven't done the calculation for you site, but
that is approximately correct.)

Cheers,
Doug
  
On Sat, 4 Jan 2003, Tom Droege wrote:

> I was just looking at last night's data as it was being processed.  I came 
> across a streak of dots.  About mag 11.  Visible on both the V and I images 
> so it is real.  There are 21 dots on one side of the image, so I suppose 
> the exposure stopped shortly after it entered the frame.  The dots are 
> spaced by about 20 pixels.  Very even spacing, equally bright dots.
> 
> Seems to me this is too faint to be the flasher on an airplane.  So it was 
> something very high that is blinking.  Are there any blinking satellites 
> out there?  Note that it was heading in a favorable track for the 16" 
> stereo view of the Mark IV to compute altitude.  If there is no stereo, 
> then with enough dots we might place it at over 100000 feet.  So the stereo 
> should be able to rule out an aircraft.
> 
> Image 2642641 from 030103  Heading SSE RA 4h 09m, Dec. +1d 11m
> 
> Tom Droege
> 
> 

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 Douglas L Welch     | Office/voicemail (905) 525-9140 x23186  
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