In message <026601c59ceb$acf174c0$35a52b18@cr871925a>, Ted Molczan <seesat@rogers.com> writes <snip> > >I just took my first long look at your report of Aug 7/8 UTC, and was stunned >to >find 312 positions of 59 objects on 122 transits, over a period of 7 hours and >16 minutes. > >You had to be in constant motion that whole time, observing, making notes, >consulting charts, star-hopping. In this less than 10 min span, you tracked 8 >different objects, most of them faint: <snip> Conditions were near-perfect; no moon, a very transparent atmosphere, temperature 17 -> 9C and, with the Milky Way high in the sky all night there's no shortage of faint stars for multiple points on a transit. At my latitude the sun was only about 20 degrees below the horizon at midnight so low objects are still visible all night. There have been several significant events in recent years that have led to my increased productivity: Moving to a darker location in late '97. Purchasing 25 x 100mm binoculars in 2000. These are impossible to hand hold so I constructed a pillar mount (tripod legs are too hazardous) and fitted the binoculars via a photographic video-camera head. The real break-through came as a result of adding setting circles to azimuth and elevation axes enabling the binoculars to be aimed at the predicted satellite position to an accuracy of about one degree. This did away with the laborious plotting of satellite tracks on star charts. It also permits observations to be made in a bright sky when few stars are visible to the unaided eye. Then I discovered Chris Marriott's SkyMap Pro software which greatly aided the reduction of observations and permitted the use of fainter stars than the magnitude 9 limitation of the Becvar charts I'd been using for thirty-something years. Lastly, but the biggest aid to productivity, came Ted's ObsReduce; there's no way that I could reduce 300+ observations and type them error-free without it. >I imagine the preparation and reduction time about equalled the observing time. > Somewhat less; about 30 minutes to run predictions and edit the list, 10 minutes to set up the equipment and four hours for reduction (spread over a six hour period). >Congratulations, Peter, on an exceptional night! Thanks, Ted. Pierre thought 12 cloned Peters helped me but I confess to other helpers: The two Davids (Brierley and Hopkins) whose prediction software I use; Mike McCants who speedily turns observations into accurate elsets and you, Ted, for ObsReduce. Best wishes, Peter -- Peter Wakelin ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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