Earl Needham (KD5XB@AMSAT.ORG) wrote: ] Using STK, I made a set of times & AZ/EL's and went out to ] see if I could see anything. Report? NOTHING. ] Anybody else have better results at seeing STARSHINE? I've never seen Starshine. I'm not 100% certain, but I believe that Mike McCants, who uses an 8-inch dobsonian telescope and definitely knows how to find satellites, has not seen it either. Its orbit resulted in a limited number of potentially visible passes over our area which was of course reduced to some extent by poor weather for some of the passes, and its small size and very slow rotation caused it to be very faint except on some rare occasions when a few lucky people saw it flash brightly once or maybe twice. ] I was really hoping to see a reentry tonight, been trying for ] some time now. Might anyone have some suggestions in that area? Is ] there a "trick" to it? I believe the trick is to look at every possible opportunity AND have very good luck! I've seen messages on SeeSat-L from people who have been observing for many years who have never seen a re-entry. I'm still here less than four years, so I've got a very long wait to see one, I guess.... Anyone who wants to improve the chances of seeing a re-entry needs to move to the tropics (and maybe the tropics south of the equator is better than north of it), as that is where, I believe (1) most (or at least very many) orbital perigees are and/or (2) many satellites tend to encounter more atmosphere sooner. In thinking about re-entries, I've coming up with these factors: 50 percent of them occur in daylight; 70 percent of them occur over water; an undetermined (by me) large percentage occur in the tropical latitudes; an undetermined (by me) percentage of the ones over land occur over uninhabited land; an undetermined (by me) percentage of the ones at night occur when most people are sleeping; etc.... It takes some very good luck to be at the right place at the right time AND be looking for one! Best of luck to everyone for clear and dark nights and re-entries during them when you are looking-- Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Feb 16 2000 - 02:50:51 PST