"The Astronomer" magazine index has nothing about the geo sat from ~1984. Most probably I put the note in the newsletter of the Uni of Aston, Earth Satellite Research Unit, for whom I worked as an observer at the time. I no longer have copies of the newsletters, but some readers probably do. The details of the geo sat last year was easier to find as I wrote a note for our local astronomical society about it, and geo sat flares in general, the following day. The flare I saw was on 2021 Sep 09UT. My note included: "Last night I noticed a mag +3 "nova" in Aquila with the naked-eye - approximately the same brightness as del Aql. My all-sky images clearly show it was a geostationary satellite undergoing a flare. It isn't clear which satellite it was, as two are within arcmins of each other in that location Apstar 6C 2018-41A NORAD 43450 Apstar 6D 2020-45A NORAD 45863" I guess it could have been some uncatalogued object though. Cheers, Rob On 1/03/2022 10:14, Robert McNaught via Seesat-l wrote: > Off hand, I can't be very helpful with details, but I have seen geo > sats with the naked-eye on several occasions. Once noticed and > followed they were later ID'd. First time was around 1984 and it > wouldn't surprise me that Russell Eberst ID'd that one for me. I think > there is a note in The Astronomer magazine about it in the following > month. Most recently, I saw one with the naked-eye last year and could > ID it from photographs. At some point, I'll look out the details, but > I believe these were in the range of mag +3 to +5. > Cheers, Rob > > On 1/03/2022 10:05, Alex D. via Seesat-l wrote: >> Hello, >> >> I sometimes see reports of binocular sightings of geo sats. But what I'm >> missing in many of those reports is the /type/ of binocular used, and >> the >> environment in which those obs were made. >> >> We all know that large binoculars might perform better than smaller >> ones, >> but omitting the type (with the basic parameters 'magnification x >> objective') makes it difficult to get a grip of how probable it is to >> see >> something. It's easy to ... boast that one can see sats with a pair of >> binoculars, but to me it is cheating by not mentioning the fact that >> these >> might e.g. be huge bino's supported by parallelograms, sighted from some >> desert far away from all light pollution. Just to make clear that this >> group deserves more accurate reportings. (A similar issue has to do with >> time reports, that should always be done in UTC time, because this is a >> global group). >> >> For example, http://www.satobs.org/faq/Chapter-06.txt tells of different >> quite interesting binocular observations, which gives the impression >> that >> having (any kind of...) binoculars would suffice to see geo sats. Which >> obviously won't be possible. [2] [3] give good hints. >> >> Therefore, IMHO this community should understand that mentioning the >> crucial numbers that go with binocular observations are important, >> otherwise many people will be disappointed when they grab their little >> binoculars. It would also benefit a report when giving an impression >> of the >> Bortle class of the environment; this would raise the value of the >> observation. It increases the scientific approach that this community is >> capable of following. >> >> Personally I have good quality 7x50 binoculars and am interested in >> using >> those to see this phenomenon (but haven't seen it yet). I have been >> observing this phenomenon with a Meade LX-200 telescope (for details, >> see >> [1], unfortunately not quite scientific because posted on Facebook, >> forgive >> meif you might not be able to access the pictures.) >> >> rgds >> >> -alex- >> Stargazing in Gent <https://sites.google.com/view/stargazing-in-gent/> >> >> >> [1] >> https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10220745930708816&set=a.10220303872457636 >> >> [2] http://www.satobs.org/faq/Chapter-07.txt >> [3] http://www.satobs.org/faq/Chapter-01.txt >> >> >> On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 11:40 AM Kevin Fetter via Seesat-l < >> seesat-l_at_satobs.org> wrote: >> >>> Geo sat eclipse season begins. >>> >>> When to look around, for flares for your latitude. >>> >>> http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Mar-2000/0107.htm >>> < >>> http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Mar-2000/0107.html?fbclid=IwAR0VzI-Nv9s6_8ErbAcJATHCyBAgAfUS3jZw2xryiYlMfoUKpbVzUPEyN9s >>> >>> l >>> >>> Enjoy the show, >>> >>> Kevin >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Seesat-l mailing list >>> http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> Seesat-l mailing list >> http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l > > _______________________________________________ > Seesat-l mailing list > http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-lReceived on Tue Mar 01 2022 - 04:39:29 UTC
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Tue Mar 01 2022 - 10:39:29 UTC