Mainly for fun (any visible satellite), Heavens Above can give you many kinds of info. Start by finding your location at http://www.heavens-above.com/countries.asp , then save the home page created to your Favourites. You can get lists of satellite passes, limited by predicted peak magnitude, with star charts; and Iridium night- or daytime flares. You can also find data and predictions on a specific satellite, if you know what is interesting (read more about satellites on SeeSat-L and the rest of www). You may want to concentrate on certain classes of satellites - purpose, design, country of origin... Save the interesting HA pages in Favourites also. For more science, read http://www.satobs.org/seesat/satintro.html and the SeeSat FAQ and find out in which areas you wish to contribute. You may want to observe average (synodic) brightness periods like the BWGS group, or more detailed optical characteristics. Or you may want to do positional observations. These are very important for classified objects (including their rockets and debris) and for some faint objects where NASA OIG do not publish elsets frequently, and for objects near decay. My own interests are observations of objects whose elements are unknown or uncertain, and rotating satellites with occasional bright flashes. I use observations of my own, and others, to compute orbits, predict decays (hoping to see one eventually) and finding the rotation axis of objects to be able to predict where bright flashes can be seen, especially for nearly geostationary satellites I otherwise can't see with binoculars. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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
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