Hi Greg, As I may mentioned to some, I have been trying to develop visual astronomy pursuits that are amenable to my light-polluted, usually poor seeing/transparancy backyard site. A former "Deep-sky Observer" with particular interests in supernovae searches and eruptive variable stars, I am now observing a gamut of stuff I generally overlooked (actually underlooked/ignored) in the past. So far, I think satellites offer a great way to apply and develop astronomical skills. Anyway... I use Orbitron to generate lists of potential targets that I can cull by hand. Then I use Cartes du Ciel to look at the Sky Chart for particular passes. Carte du Ciel doesn't generate predictions for USA 142 (25669) It does give estimated magnitudes for lots of faint satellites but I think those are all with shorter periods. When I need to, I resort to ObsReduce. My choice of software is primarily historical accident. The first programs I could learn to meet my needs have shaped the way I try to plan observing. (A nice feature of Orbitron is sorting sats by period etc. I also like the real-time Az/El and RA/DEC data it gives in chart format) But... You're right, I should try out HEAVENSAT. Thanks for the suggestion. Historically, I've always enjoyed the preparation time involved for observing--great way to spend cloudy nights or days but I've found planning for satellites can be time-consuming. I'm not fond of using a laptop at the telescope but since satellites have real-time constraints, I've thought about the advantage of doing "planning-on-the-fly." HEAVENSAT sounds like it's well-suited for that. Sorry for the long-winded thanks! Best regards, Peter **************An Excellent Credit Score is 750. See Yours in Just 2 Easy Steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1221621499x1201450105/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072&hmpgID=62&bcd=Apr ilExcScore428NO62) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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