I subscribed to this list a few weeks ago, and when I did, I was requested to give an introduction. Well, I put that off for a bit just to make sure that you folks were friendly. Since I am writing this, I think that this email will be received in a good way. My name is Daniel, I live in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. I am a Unix Systems administrator by trade (and teach it on occasion) but also enjoy looking up at night and realizing how small I really am. My first encounter with satellite viewing was in 1976. My brother and I were watching a meteor shower and noticed a moving object going across the sky. What interested us the most is that while watching it, it just disappeared. We had no clue what it was, but knew that it wasn’t an airplane. We had no clue on why it would just disappear, but it did. After a bunch of debates (well, I was only 7 at the time) we figured it was a satellite. I only discovered why it disappeared (into the shadow) about a month ago. It had been on my mind that all that time.. Since that night and others, I have observed many more, but had no clue that you could actually track them. (why would I have known?) Though I know that I am no expert, I have been trying with limited success at tracking these things that go round and round the earth. To be honest, I have been less successful than I had wished. This brings me to my newbie questions…. First of all, I use a few programs to help me with sightings. I compare that data with the heavens above site and try to figure out when and where I should be looking. I have noticed that magnitudes are most often different depending on the software you use or the Web page that you may use to do forecasts… Why is that? What is the difference? Is there somewhere that I can go (meaning web site) that I can learn about the raw data and perform the calculations by myself? Just wondering… Another question concerned the TLE’s of Starshine 2. It took quite a bit of time for these to come out. What goes into figuring out this stuff? Just point me to a website if you can. Last but not least, how can I help? I have a bunch more questions, but if somebody would guide me to a really good FAQ or some other resource to use to help me answer my questions, thanks. Thanks to all of you for your contributions into something that interests me personally, without it having to be my career. Daniel Crawford djcunix@scc.net ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Dec 19 2001 - 06:26:30 EST