> I too have noticed discrepencies and mentioned them on this list. > Since I am often doing visual photometry on variable stars on the > same night I have a pretty good idea what a given magnitude looks > like. While I would expect variations of 1-2 mag. just due to > presentation of a satellite, still on several I have noted 4 mags. Personally, I've never had any trouble with the magnitude estimates from Heavens-Above.com. 90%+ are within a magnitude of reality. I mean, you could be observing flares. As I recall, it is very difficult to predict when a satellite will produce a flare. Unless you know the orientation of the satellite at nearly any moment in time, and know in immense detail what the satellites' reflecting surfaces are like, you can't predict them. For instance, you might see a ISS flare - but you'll never be able to predict them accurately. The orientation of the ISS might be fairly well-known (it certainly isn't spinning!), but its surfaces aren't. And by time you would get a "surface map", it'd be out of date! ------------------------------ Jonathan T. Wojack tlj18@juno.com 39.706d N 75.683d W 4 hours behind UT (-4) ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 : Mon Apr 23 2001 - 13:18:18 PDT