Right now Superbird A is pretty nearly due south of Texas, which means it's in good view from just about all of North America, I think. And the Moon is not an issue for a number of nights. So it is a good time to see it. If you haven't seen it yet, my suggestion is (unless you have a very dark site and want to try to see it without magnification) to use low-power binoculars (with 7x35 or 7x50 being plenty of power) so that you have a nice wide field of view. Then find near its predicted position a recognizable asterism that you can see easily with binoculars. With a telescope, the lower power the better, and even then you should be very confident that it will be pointed at exactly the correct position at the correct time! (You're not very likely to see something that's outside of your field of view.) The problem with seeing it without magnification is that its flashes, though bright, are so fast that their apparent magnitude isn't as bright as one might wish. Now I just wish that I could provide the exact time to look for it from given locations. Last night (Dec. 1/2) I saw it from here at about 3:30-35 UTC (9:30-35 PM CST). A search strategy would be to look for about 25 to 30 seconds of every minute beginning about five to ten minutes before you think it might start flashing brightly. Looking at an old message from Rob Matson, it looks like it flashes a few minutes earlier in the west than in the east: http://satobs.org/seesat/Nov-2001/0040.html It flashes roughly 60 to 90 seconds later per night. Here's a current elset: SUPERBIRD A 1 20040U 89041A 02335.19310297 -.00000104 00000-0 10000-3 0 3863 2 20040 8.5560 48.1706 0005387 148.8462 211.0674 0.99741008 48690 Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Dec 02 2002 - 20:26:58 EST