You can never have an exact match for a track using what you suggest, (except for a pass that goes through the zenith), but you CAN greatly improve the ease of tracking following your train of thought. The reason it cannot match exactly is that satellites follow linear paths across the earth's surface and do not "orbit" or follow great-circle paths around the observer (except when the orbital plane passes through the observer, i.e. satellite passes through zenith). I have used the method you describe with good success. A simple formula for pointing the polar axis of your scope is to take the ALTITUDE and AZIMUTH of the satellite's culmination point and use them in the following calculations. The altitude that your polar axis should point at would be: 90 - (max. satellite altitude). The Azimuth that your polar axis should be pointed at would be: Satellite Azimuth at Culmination - 180. Of course you must put this azimuth in a 0 - 360 degree range by adding 360 to the answer if it is less than 0. What will then happen is at culmination the "declination" your telescope will be set at is "0", but before and after culnimation it will be less than "0" to follow the satellite, except (again) it will track very well when a satellite passes through the observer's zenith. But then, you don't need to tilt the axis at all. I've seen detail in the Shuttle (wings, cockpit section and vertical tail) and MIR with a 12" f7 Dobsonian at 150X moved by hand by simply waiting until a pass was directly overhead! This obviously limits the opportunities, but patience pays off! This is crude, and I'm sure there are others out there who have a better method of approximating an observer's satellite orbit "pole" that would make tracking with a properly tilted 2-axis scope even easier. I'd also be interested in hearing of other (and better!) methods. Rick Baldridge, Campbell, CA N37.262 W121.977 72M ---------- From: Grzegorz Koralewski To: SeeSat Mailing List Subject: Orbit's pole Date: Friday, July 24, 1998 9:31AM Hi SeeSatters, I've tried to see the structure of Mir several times, but tracking it with my equatorially-mounted Newtonian has always been a barrier. Recently I thought, that actually hand-tracking would be much easier if I knew where the pole of the orbit was. What I'm looking for, is a computer program that will tell me RA and Dec of the orbit's pole. I would have to care only for one axis then. Clear Skies, Grzegorz Koralewski 53.37N 14.65E 100M