Dear all, I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Bob Blewett and I live in the South West of the UK - Dilton Marsh, Westbury, Wiltshire. I am thirtysomething, married with three children and work for a software house in Bath specialising in CAD/CAM systems. Like most people I guess, I spend most of my day stressed out dealing with problem after problem. As a method of relaxing, I undertook Astronomy about 10 years or so ago, welcoming the opportunity to get outside and be with the elements (no pun intended!). It has been purely by chance that I became interested in the visual observation of satellites. I am a keen user of PC based Astronomy programs, and have been using a package called Guide for about 4 years now. The latest version (Guide 7) includes tracking of satellites. I received the latest version about 2 weeks ago, and on the same day made my first predicted sighting of a satellite - Lacrosse 2. I was stunned that the software was able to do this with such accuracy. Does anybody else use Guide?. This is not a plug, but details can be found at http://www.projectpluto.com. I am continually pestered by my kids to go outside and see more satellites - maybe a reason to stay up late, I'm not sure! I am now hooked, and have been "lurking" in this email group since then. I have also read every quite a few FAQs, along with getting TLE's from OIG, Celestrak etc. - all excellent stuff. I suspect that most of my queries as of the short term should be directed at the Usenet - sci.astro.satellites.visual.observe. Is this the best approach considering my inexperience? I am interested in communicating with other UK based observers. Thanks for listening BobB bobb@radal.demon.co.uk