Hoi, After reading the latest, very interesting, threads on measuring a satellites position, I dared to give it a try. For this night USA 129 and USA 144 both made an interesting pass. I found one suitable star in Bootes which USA 129 would fly along closely and for USA 144 I found a star in Cygnus and one in Perseus. Before each measurement I located the star in my 1000 mm F/10 refractor with a 40x eyepiece. Using the predictions with Skymap 6.4 I set my watch so it started beeping the first whole minute closest to the time the satellite would pass my star and I started counting with it so I had a guess when the satellite would be expected. So here I am, looking through the telescope with my thumb on the startbutton of my stopwatch. Here comes the satellite and I push it when it gets closest to the star. Then I take a look at it's motion relative to the stars in the field so I can guestimate it's RA and Decl. Next to do is to find the time. I used my watch, which I had synchronized with the time given on the something like CNNtex on TV (please forgive me when this is a stupid way to find an accurate time but it is the best I have at the moment). I used the watch to substract the time the stopwatch gave me to find the time of the observation. Finding an accurate position is a bit more difficult. I have no idea whether the right ascension and declination of the epoch of the date or the J2000.0 equatorial coordinates. Someone enlighten me here please. I used Wil Tirions Sky Atlas 2000 to locate the stars on the sky and checked the positions of the stars with Skymap Pro 6. So here are my observations: Sat/NORAD/COSPAR Date (UT) Time (UT) R.A. Decl. USA 129/#24680/96072A 2000-08-22 21:38:55.92 14h52m24.3s 20°24'14" USA 144/#25744/99028A 2000-08-22 21:53:30.12 20h30m07.6s 48°57'18" USA 144/#25744/99028A 2000-08-22 22:01:30.83 02h18m05.5s 57°54'18" The equatorial coordinates given here are those of the equinox of the date. But I can provide the J2000 coordinates if necessary. The coordinates of my observation place are: Beesd, Netherlands Latitude: 51°54'41" North Longitude: 05°25'10" East Elevation: -2 meters I'm sorry not to provide you with the data in the correct formats, but since this is the first time I do this I am not sure what all those numbers represent in the more professional observations sent to this list. I can fish out the sat, the date, time and RA/Decl, but that's about it. If some of you guys can tell me what each column in Russel Ebersts and Ted Molczans observational reports represent I would be very helpfull. Looking forward to replies that explain the questions I've asked in this mail and looking more forward to do some more observations. Regards, Cees Bassa ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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
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