>spending a lot of time identifying unids (and usually >unsuccessfully). What is best program / software, IYHO? Ed answered: >Findsat works well for me. Other good ones that people >use are IDSat, SkyMap, and ObsReduce. Especially for >bright objects, Quicksat and Highfly can often be used >successfully by defining a "box" in alt-az or RA-Dec. >... >for objects one might expect to see given the optics used >provides hundreds of objects. I just used +7 magnitude cut-off, I agree with most of Ed's comments, but have a few additions: As he says, there are usually too many candidates, even when you are using a "box", and you can't always put a sane magnitude limit since you might have seen it during an unusual "glint" or flare. (Even supposedly small debris objects are often found, especially by Russell Eberst) The problem with textual programs like FindSat, IDSat, Quicksat and HighFly is that they only give the distance to one point (and in the last two you may also have to interpolate to get close to your observed point). If you have two or more points you will have to single out the candidates that appear in all of the boxes. The graphic programs will allow you to match your visual recollection of the track's position and direction (perhaps even speed) to the plotted tracks, using a single point. Use a sketch, and/or a written note like "passed two degrees above Vega in the 10 o'clock direction (300 degrees), taking 12 seconds to cross my FOV diameter". In addition to the display box and magnitude limits, SkyMap also allows you to set min and max range, which sometimes helps you to remove "impossible" tracks cluttering your view. In this situation, ObsReduce (otherwise superb) is limited to log the coordinates from your visual recollection, or confirm/ dismiss a few likely candidates, one at a time. /Björn (b_gimle@algonet.se ) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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