re: How visible are flares???

Richard Fredrick (rfredric@tfs.net)
Wed, 27 May 1998 09:08:34 -0500

Hi all,

In reference to item "c" below I have also found that Alan Pickup's site
has the most reliably updated Iridium elsets. There is at least one other
way to acquire very timely updates: I registered on the OIG website and
copy a text file of the Iridium catalog numbers into the TLE query window.
Now if we could just get a direct link from that radar "fence" in Texas...


At 08:34 5/27/98 -0400, Walter Nissen wrote:
>
>> 1. Do you accurately know the latitude, longitude, and elevation data for 
>> your site? 
>> 2. Did you correctly enter this data into your prediction program? 
>> 3. Did you make a mistake when specifying your time zone? I use UTC for
the 
>> date and time. 
>> 3. Are your Iridium orbital elements less than one week old? 
> 
>a.  Did you enter your longitude with the correct sign?  East is supposed 
>to be positive, but some older programs from the Western hemisphere may 
>use the old convention.  If you are using more than one program, is it 
>correct everywhere? 
> 
>b.  Did you confuse standard time and daylight time?  UTC is pretty 
>convenient.  I run my PC on UTC. 
> 
>c.  These elsets are less than 1 week old: 
>Iridium 48       3.0  0.0  0.0  6.0 d            780 x 775 km 
>1 25107U 97082D   98146.24514426  .00015012  00000-0  53259-2 0  1231 
>2 25107  86.3962 284.4531 0003838  66.7932 293.3651 14.34362860 22531 
>Iridium 48 
>1 25107U 97082D   98141.15255854 -.00003697 +00000-0 -12622-2 0 01588 
>2 25107 086.4074 286.5779 0004213 070.0837 290.0753 14.36753424021801 
>Yet this morning the culminations computed from them differ by almost 15 
>minutes in time and 17 degrees in altitude.  Ouch!! 
>And the frequently helpful TIM parameter in QuickSat required a 
>hair-trigger sensitivity, as it barely blipped. 
>The currently accurate, first, one is from Alan Pickup's file.  The 
>second, I think, is from molczan.tle. 
> 
>Cheers. 
> 
>Walter Nissen                   dk058@cleveland.freenet.edu 
>-81.8637, 41.3735, 256m elevation 
> 
>---
>
>Carpe noctem!
>
>


Sincerely,
Richard Fredrick
rfredric@tfs.net
Fairway, KS USA
39.021N 94.637W