I see that the reporting of information obtained from radio observations is again under question. As one of the optical trackers who relies HEAVILY on observations such as Bob has posted I WELCOME such reports. Some of the difficult objects that are tracked optically - especially the 90*** objects - are frequently manoeuvred and if it were not for Bobs, and other radio observers information, I would not have a CLUE where to look which could result in the object become lost, as indeed has happened frequently in the past. If a report, such as Bobs, indicates that the mean motion has changed, or the doppler observations indicate that a particular satellite is running X minutes "off" predictions, then optical observers will then have a good idea of how much earlier- or later- to look and thus recover the satellite. Another useful application of radio observations is in the case of geostationary satellites that are frequently moved from one location to another - in the last few months we have had several such events and, with the aid of the pointing data supplied by radio observers, the optical observer is able to find the satellite. I therefore strongly feel that reports, such as Bob has posted, should be more than welcome. Obviously there is no real value in posting radio observations of objects that are tracked by SPACETRACK, but for objects that appear in CLASSIFIED.TLE elements sets I feel they should be welcomed with open arms. Just my cents worth but since I try to specialize in tracking the difficult objects that are mostly neglected because of their difficulty, I need ALL the help I can get , so Bob-- (and others tracking non SPACETRACK objects) post away!! Cheers Greg ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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