Evening Gerhard I can also add to Bjoern's comments. If you look at the various satellites in CLASSFD.TLE- especially the 90*** objects that have an inclination around 25-30 degrees or so - ideal for your latitude :-)) - you will see quite a few satellites that have not been observed for a long time. These are basically lost. These objects are typically large spent rocket casings in geostationary transfer orbits which means they have a low perigee and a high apogee. When near perigee they are naked eye objects. A typical case was 90070 which was lost for a LONG time until I accidentally observed it on three occassions over a space of several weeks and Ted was able to tie it all together and 90070 recovered. The magnitude was typically around 2-3 magnitude so easy. If this, and similar objects in CLASSIFIED.TLE are not observed more frequently they will again become lost and even a report like " I saw 90070 at 19h35m UT at about 20 degrees elevation in the east" is good enough to give a pointer when to look. Finding the ones currently lost will take a fair amount of time and the more prolific observers prefer to observe 10 satellites rather than try and recover one lost satellite. The KH satellites are a bit difficult for you - you are not far enough south of the equator at 26 deg S so you will have limited access to some for a relatively short period in the summer months. Another area where you could be very useful are the Molniya type satellites in CLASSIFIED.TLE. You and I see these satellites heading towards perigee and they can get quite bright - 3rd mag and some of them produce bright flashes. Sometimes these satellites have long periods when they are not visible at a civilised time so could become lost. Several of them carry out frequent orbit changes which makes things a bit more exciting/difficult. So yes, there is plenty a casual observer equipped with binoculars and stop watch can do with rough observations. Its the same sort of situation we have in professional astronomy - amateurs spot things like novae,comets, variable stars brightening etc which the professional would otherwise miss and the amateurs give the warnings that enable the professionals to observe these objects - the sky is pretty big and the more people looking, the more will be seen. Cheers Greg ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Feb 24 2009 - 21:15:57 UTC