Re: Question about stopwatches.

From: Leo Barhorst (leobarhorst@zonnet.nl)
Date: Mon Jun 05 2000 - 13:25:47 PDT

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    Hello Jonathan and others,
    
    I use a light binocular, not so powerfull, just 7x35; that is a
    magnification of 7
    and a objective(forward lens) of 35 mm diameter.
    As it is hard to watch the sky standing, I use an adjustable gardenchair to
    sit
    in. When fully put down I can easily look straight up.
    When observing long passes I regularly switch over to the other hand to hold
    the bino. The stopwatch is on a cord around my neck hanging down. I'm quite
    familiar with it and can "feel" which button to push for starting and timing
    lap-
    times. I stop the time at a known time reading from a shortwave clock,
    synchro-
    nized every minute by radiowaves from a German Radio station near Frankfurt.
    
    In my gardenshed I've a laptopcomputer with the predictions on screen, and
    look
    for the next sat (about 350 are predicted each night) I can observe. The
    priority
    sats go first. The pass along the sky is checked on a starmap and a suitable
    point to wait for the sat is selected and the track noted.
    Then I go to my chair, adjust it to the proper direction and viewing
    position and
    wait for the sat scanning the vicinity of the waiting point through my
    bino's
    In this way I can observe a sat about every 5 minutes on everage.
    See my regualar postings of observations.
    
    Greetings and clear, dark skies
    Leo Barhorst
    52.767 N  5.09 E  2 m ASL
    
    ----- Original Message -----
    From: <tlj18@juno.com>
    To: <SeeSat-L@blackadder.lmsal.com>
    Sent: Monday, June 05, 2000 1:16 AM
    Subject: Question about stopwatches.
    
    
    > Hello,
    >
    > My question:
    >
    > How do you people time flashes of satellites seen in binoculars?  You
    > have a stopwatch in one hand, binoculars in the other hand.....?  I would
    > think that almost any useful pair of binoculars would be too heavy to
    > hold with one hand, steady, for more than a few seconds.
    >
    > Could someone illuminate me?
    >
    > Jonathan Wojack
    > tlj18@juno.com
    
    
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