Commentary on the evdidence for Echelon

[Neil Clifford]

On Wed, Jan 31, 2001 at 09:12:32AM -0800, Paul Leyland wrote:

> I don't remember seeing any 2nd magnitude geosynchronous objects and I'm
> fairly sure that my subscription to The Astronomer would have let me know if
> anyone else had seen one.

They can flare up to mag +2 (or better, either side of the equinoxes):

 http://www.satellite.eu.org/sat/vsohp/geosats.html

Some have been noted to flash to mag 0 (at least).

BTW those sats are visible eg Vortex:

 http://www2.satellite.eu.org/sat/seesat/Nov-1999/0119.html

regards,

-- 
Neil Clifford * Oxford Starlink Computer Manager * clifford@astro.ox.ac.uk