I agree with rob on his comments about heavens above. While I started observing satellites before I knew there was a site on heavens above, it a good place for people to go to. Alot of people might want to know when the iss will pass by, are when to see a naked eye satellite. That's where heavens above comes in. For me I use guide 8 for satellite tracking. http://www.projectpluto.com I might use rob's skymap when out at the lake, where my laptop can't run guide. While mike mccants has some nice programs, I like the graphical view guide 8 and rob's skymap give. It's easier to find satellite's when you can see the stars they will pass by, and so I can star hop. I don't have a equatorial mounted telescope, so R.A and Dec mean nothing to me. And the output of Altitude and Azimuth are again useless to me. I can't look at the sky and say that 's 20 degree altitude by looking. I find the bright star I need and star hop to the right spot. I have attached a low light video camera to the top of my scope. It lets me see down to around mag 8.5, and gives at least a 3 degree feild of view. I can star hop way more easily that way, then looking through the eyepeice, and trying it that way. Then if the satellite is bright enough, I can watch it pass through the feild of view of the video camera with a 5 ince black and white tv used for viewing. Sometines nicer then using my 10*50 binoculars. And more then one person can view the passage. Kevin __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ----------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from SeeSat-L, send a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@satobs.org List archived at http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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