Hi, I am new here, my name is Warren Leadbeatter (I am using my wife's email account at home). I am located at a place called Kellyville NSW Australia. (Coords 33.72 S, 150.93 E 99M ASL) Kellyville is approx 40km NW of Sydney, clear skys and well situated for night sky viewing. I have been watching the night skys for the past 10 or so years. Nothing too serious, mainly sun, planets, moon and the occaisional comet, however this year I decided to find out more about satellites after noticing a few that would occaisionally flare up then fade out. (I have since discovered that these are Iridiums). I decided to get on the Internet and see what I could find. I have found some excellent sites that have given me a great amount of information in very little time. The first place I discovered was the GSOC Satellite Predictions Page. http://www.gsoc.dlr.de/satvis I was totally amazed when it told me that the ISS was going to fly over and I went outside to look and there it was exactly where the program said it would be! The hair was standing up on the back of my neck and there was a rush of excitement. Hey, this thing works! I quickly raced back inside to see what else this thing could tell me. I discovered that the Iridium Flare predicitions are also very accurate and was blown away a second time when I saw one during the day time. Since then (about 3 weeks ago) I have found all sorts of amazing info, satellite prediction programs, elsets! and web sites that have led me here. Hopefully I will learn more from you guys and maybe contribute a little as well. Regards, Warren Leadbeatter P.S. Last night I saw 2 Iridiums within a minute or so of each other, I believe it was Iridium 84 first then Iridium 10 second. There seems to be a bit of confusion regarding the naming of these little guys. I read that OIG lists Iridium 9 & 10 back to front and that Iridium 84 is not at operational altitude yet so the flare predicition may not be accurate. Nevertheless I saw 2 flares within a minute or so of each other flying North to South about 26 deg El at 183 deg Az. at the times predicited by IRIDFLAR v1.65 by Rob Matson. Amazing! ====================================================== Warren Leadbeatter Email: warren@ozemail.com.au Ph: 02-9629-5851 Mobile: 0412-230-677 ICQ#: 5986123 *** Web: http://www.ozemail.com.au/~warrenl *** ======================================================