After the local astronomy club meeting, I was home in time (a few minutes before 4:00 UTC) to see a few flashes of Superbird A (20040, 89-041A) through cirrus from the light- polluted parking lot of my apartment building. I used my new Orion Ultraview 8x42 binoculars, and this was their first satellite observation. I decided on them for my new handhelds, due to their 8.2° field of view and plenty of eye relief (fully multicoated and BaK-4), and hoping for less shaking due to less magnification and lighter weight than the 10x50s. In terms of seeing unids, I wonder which will win out -- larger FOV (more crossers) or brighter magnitude reach (fewer visible). Later on I'll get something bigger. I looked through some 15x70 last week in the local astronomy store and was quite impressed. Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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