THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 157 1988 May 19 19.09UT. Telecom Gold 72:MAG60138 Ed:Guy M Hurst, 16, Westminster Close, Kempshott Rise, Basingstoke, Hants, RG22 4PP, England. Telephone:(0256)471074.Int:+44256471074 Telex:265871(MONREF G) Quote"72:MAG60138 ATT G.HURST"in FIRST line. ------------------------------------------------------------------- ABBA 1 Rob McNaught comments: The orbit given represents the positions poorly. Much better elements are T = 1987 Sept 15.503 Peri= 257.841 Node= 128.782 Incl= 29.252 a = 1.14914 e = 0.87974 P = 1.23 years Motion and mag (based on H=15, G=0.25) are 1988 Feb 16 46.7"/hr in PA 14 mag 18.7 1988 Mar 19 71.8 328 18.4 1988 Apr 29 75.0 278 18.3 This is an Apollo orbit and doesn't represent any known comet or minor planet. From the crude positions, I assume that these are naked-eye observations, in which case mag < 6. This would then give H < 3 for the outbursts. It is not possible that such an object would have gone unnoticed. There is a (slight) possibility that the orbit is one of the few artificial satellites in heliocentric orbit. This I'll check later today. However, there is the same problem in getting such bright flashes. The claim that this is a flare star is patently ridiculous. My conclusions are 1) This is a hoax. 2) This is another case of the Aries flasher. Amateurs who have more computational power than sense. or 3) It is an artificial satellite in heliocentric orbit. Martin Mobberley reports that photographs on May 15 at the