Ron Lee remarked about the run of bad luck he's been having in attempting to see the new Orbcomms. Ron, you're not alone. I've tried to see two morning passes, under absolutlely clear skies, and only saw the Pegasus rocket, 25120/97084J, which was easily seen with binos on a 41 deg. pass in the south. For the Orbcomm cluster, I tried using my newtonian scope, positioning it where Skymap predicted they would pass through (roughly Az 160 El 25 for both passes). I now think I missed them because I misinterpreted the Skymap plot of the region of sky between Virgo and Corvus. Skymap shows two stars in the mag 3 range only a few degrees apart from each other, but out in the field I could only readily see one of the pair at one power. Here are the stars, as described by Skymap: SAO #181695 Mag 3.5 RA 13h 29m 35.76s Dec -23 16' 8.8" SAO #181543 Mag 3.3 RA 13h 18m 48.38s Dec -23 9' 33.0" gamma Hya They are about 10 deg. below Spica, halfway between Spica and Corvus. I just found out using Redshift that the first star is variable, with a magnitude variation of 8.5! No wonder the current sky isn't matching the plots! (that sound you hear is my head banging against the wall) I think I was accidently using the wrong star as my starting point to position my scope before manually slewing to the part of the sky where the Orbcomms were expected. As it turns out, they passed about a few degrees outside my FOV both mornings, but I began scanning with binos when it became apparent the first few weren't showing up on time; no luck. I should note that my SE horizons are partially obscured by trees, so I could only scan a portion of the predicted tracks. With clearer horizons, I might have picked them up. There are other stars in Skymap plots with misleading magnitudes, such as the variable star that shows up in Corona Borealis that I don't recall ever being obvious. Too bad these variable stars aren't color coded somehow, to make them stand out from the others. Getting back to the Orbcomms, if you're like me and enjoy seeing what satellites actually look like, check out the photos and an artist's rendition of the Orbcomm satellites at their website. The Orbcomms have an interesting configuration I've never seen before. Small thumbnail graphics are at: http://www.orbcomm.com/coolstuff/photos.html or just go directly to the 800x600 42k JPEGs: http://www.orbcomm.com/coolstuff/orbanec.html photo of sat http://www.orbcomm.com/coolstuff/orbrend.html artist's rendition http://www.orbcomm.com/coolstuff/Vanden.html undergoing assembly The elsets are now in the OIG thirty.tle file, with the designation FM-5 through FM-12, and the K object is called HAPS. I wonder what the abbreviations FM and HAPS designate? The first cluster of five are currently separated by gaps of 6, 26, 10, and 31 seconds. The second cluster of three arrives about 3 minutes later, with 23 and 21 second gaps between them. The rocket and HAPS aren't close at all to the Orbcomms anymore. I hope everyone had a pleasant holiday. Here in California, until today I've had totally cloud free days and nights for about a week. So much for El Nino. I bagged quite a few new debris objects and obscure Cosmos satellites during the clear spell, but those Orbcomms were frustrating. Craig Cholar 3432P@VM1.CC.NPS.NAVY.MIL Marina, California 36 41 10.3N, 121 48 17.9W (36.6862, -121.8050) UTC -8