Yes, for many satellites in the Clarke belt (geostationary, operational) it's when the Sun's declination matches the the declination of the satellites. For your latitude this is -5.7 degrees, and occurs around Oct.7. The most likely satellites would be opposite to the Sun in RA, but the radius of the Earth's shadow is nearly eight degrees, so between +- 58 degrees latitude this point is in shadow, and you must look a little left or right of this point. But some designs flare at 45 or 60 degrees away in RA, and some military satellites within +-7 degrees inclination also flare, and the season extends for some satellites a week or more before/after the expected date.. You may refer to my old page www.algonet.se/~b_gimle/geoflare.htm and its spreadsheet which computes the shadow outlines, and to www.satobs.org 2012/9/12 Bob Hampton <tsobservatory@gmail.com> > Hello, I am a long time satellite watcher but I have been absent from this > list for several years. If I am remembering right geosat flaring season > (in the northern hemisphere) will begin soon i.e. shortly after Sept. > equinox. I saw this a few years ago and I really was amazed - watched them > for several nights, lighting up one by one as they moved from Pisces into > Cetus. Don't want to miss it this time. May even want to make an event of > it for my astronomy club. I'm at 36 degrees N. Is there an easy way to > figure what dates to look for this? > Bob > -- > Bob Hampton > President, Blue Ridge Astronomy Group > http://blueridgeastronomygroup.com > <828-675-4449> > -- ---------------------------------------- Björn Gimle, COSPAR 5919 59.2576 N, 18.6172 E, 23 m Phone: +46 (0)8 571 43 312 Mobile: +46 (0) 704 385 486 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/private/seesat-l/attachments/20120912/c71e29b9/attachment.html _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Sep 12 2012 - 20:19:53 UTC