On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 01:53:53 -0400 "Ted Molczan" <molczan@rogers.com> wrote: ... stuff deleted ... > For frequent reports of many accurate observations, it may make sense > to develop a special format. As a first cut, here's a proposed format which seems to include all the information needed to deduce the standard (or intrinsic or whatever) magnitude of a satellite (shamelessly cloned from the PPAS format description): Column Data 01-08 COSPAR-identification of the satellite in the format yy-nnncc. yy is the year of launch, nnn is the number of the launch (only contains significant numbers and is right justified), cc is the piece of the launch (contains non-numeric characters). e.g. '00- 25 C' was launched in 2000 as the third component of that year's 25th launch. 10-17 Date (UTC) of observation in the format yy-mm-dd. Here all figures are given (even non-significant numbers). e.g. '04-07-11' is July 11 in 2004. 19-28 Time of the observation in the format hh:mm:ss.t , given in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Depending on the accuracy with which the time was measured, the time can be incomplete. Alternatively, the time may be given in this format : hh:mm.t. This gives hours, minutes and tenths of a minute and may be used to show that the timing accuracy is lower than 1 second. Examples: 08:54:03 or 08:54.1 30-32 An abbreviation of the name of the observer. 34-39 Observed visual magnitude in the form SMM.MM where "S" is "-" or "+" (or blank). 41-44 Estimated uncertainty in the magnitude, in the form "M.MM" 46-48 Phase angle, degrees (in the astronomical sense of the term where 000 = "full" phase, 180 = "new" phase). 50-55 Range (observer-to-satellite distance) in kilometers. 57-80 Comments, remarks, etc. As an example, an observation I reported earlier today could be coded as: 00000000 11111111 1222222222 333 333333 4444 444 555555 55566666666667777777777 12345678 01234567 9012345678 012 456789 1234 678 012345 78901234567890123456789 yy-nnncc YY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.S XXX SMM.MM M.MM PPP RRRRRR Remarks 00- 25 C 04-07-11 08:54.1 EL +3.0 0.30 049 279 Clear and dark skies! Ed Light Lakewood, NJ, USA N 40.1075, W 074.2312, +24 m (80 ft) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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