This originally was two responses to private communications. However, I think there would be value in a generic opinion expressed to the entire list. Regarding being intimidated by those who have very sophisticated equipment, this sound like a revisit of the "I am an observer" thread so I will not go there. Suffice to say I believe useful data can be derived from all the available observers. The formats of the reports are also mystifying to newbies, but I think that mentoring and time will solve that. As far as priority of objects to observe and report, I would say that the items in the classfd.tle is a priority, because as classified objects they are not published publicly except by hobbyists. And there are lots of them that can be tracked by stopwatch and binoculars, some even by eye. However, the issue of accuracy comes up. I would think statistically that several sets of fairly accurate data would be preferable to waiting for someone to "nail" it. I do not pretend to understand the process by which observations are selectively reduced to the elements published on this list. If certain areas are clouded out, or an observer is unavailable, there is a risk of losing an object. We have the luxury of solar minimum right now; as the sun becomes more active, the risk of elements being off increases. This is a symbiotic relationship, as I have said before. No one can see everything, so they can't produce the entire element set and no one will see anything easily if there are no elements produced. One area that all observers can contribute to is PPAS (flashing or tumbling satellites), and reporting flares from such objects as Iridium, Skymeds, NOSS objects, etc. I personally enjoy most the reports of flashing "dead" geosats and flaring geosats during seasons like the current one. The PPAS list does include a list of priorities, where certain objects are changing and more observations are wanted. Iridium flares are well understood, but there is some tweaking due, as several of the recent predictions have been off a bit. Again, there are reporting format issues, but I believe these are surmountable. The hurdle, IMO, is motivation. Given enough positive feedback, people will make an effort to observe, and report what they see. Given no feedback or upon seeing that their reports are ignored, they will stop. The choice is ours. TULSA 1 COSPAR 8336: +36.128, -95.988, 650ft ASL ACT Observatory COSPAR 8335: +35.8311, -96.1411, 1100ft ASL Adams Ranch COSPAR 8337: +36.937, -96.65, 700ft ASL Kenton, OK COSPAR 8338: +36.8978, -102.9522, 4400ft ASL ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Feb 23 2009 - 21:49:27 UTC