Satellite transits

From: Matson, Robert (ROBERT.D.MATSON@saic.com)
Date: Mon Jun 12 2000 - 18:28:17 PDT

  • Next message: glwells@Americanisp.net: "Re: Satellite transits"

    Hi Gary,
    
    > About 2 years ago I was observing sunspots at about 10 A.M. PDT when a
    > mysterious circular object flew through my field of view (at about 120X).
    > Since I'm on a dob mount, I felt compelled to follow it and immediately
    lost
    > it when I drew away from the sun. I surmised it to be a satellite but only
    > recently I began to wonder if something like this could be plotted as
    well.
    
    It was probably a balloon -- you'd be surprised how many of
    them are launched each day.  Even the largest satellites
    would be barely resolvable at 120x.
    
    > So, being a fan of IRIDFLAR, and Heavens-Above.com, and David Ransom's
    > STSPLUS software I wonder if anyone could recommend a method to predict a
    > satellite's transit between my driveway and the sun or moon?
    
    My SkyMap program will do solar and lunar transit predictions,
    as well as conjunctions with bright stars.  You can download
    SkyMap 6.4 from:
    
    ftp://ftp.fc.net/pub/users/mikem/skymap64/
    
    The main files you will need are SKY64.ZIP, SKY64AUX.ZIP, HIP8.ZIP,
    and HIP8IDX.ZIP.  If you want stars dimmer than magnitude +8.5,
    you can also download HIP9.ZIP and HIP9IDX.ZIP.  And if you want
    to try seeing asteroids, download ASTEROID.ZIP.  (Vesta is quite
    bright right now at magnitude +6.1).
    
    Cheers,
    Rob
    
    
    
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