Hi all, Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Adam Vellender, and I live in Cheltenham, UK. I'm 17, and am interested in astronomy in general, although I enjoy seeing things moving around up there! I've been lurking on this list for a few months now, and have a few questions to ask. I am only a visual observer at the moment - and look out for the ISS, Iridium flares and other satellites up to about magnitude 3.5 that Heavens-Above tells me about when the weather allows me to. As I said, I have a few questions: What is the maximum angle of elevation from the ground (I think I probably mean altitude - sorry - I'm still getting to grips with the terminology!) at which an Iridium Flare can be seen? As far as I can remember, I've never seen one with an altitude greater than about 45 degrees. Presumably the geometry of the reflections off the satellite's panels limit this. Would this be different for a tumbling Iridium sat? Also, at what kind of magnitude did the space shuttle appear when it was in operation? I only discovered satellite observing after the Columbia tragedy, unfortunately, so never saw it. And how bright do Progress crafts appear when undocked? And finally, I was wondering what is generally considered to be the best free software for satellite observing. At the moment, I'm using Orbitron, which seems nice and user-friendly, along with Iridflar which is great. I was just wondering really whether there was any other software that I would benefit from having. Thanks, Adam Vellender adamvellender@yahoo.co.uk ____________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - Communicate instantly..."Ping" your friends today! Download Messenger Now http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com/download/index.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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