All: First let me apologize for a major DOH moment, by sending the original message in rich text. It has been a while since I posted and I simply forgot, my apologies. Thank you Kevin and Ted, let me be a bit more specific, I'm sorry I had data flying all over the place and I can picture you pros just cringing as you read through my post ;-) The observation location with my scope (I'll start there) was the coordinates I gave, precisely, which were: 41.85388170066449 N (a little more precise this time) -79.95695918798447 W. around 1000 feet ASL. Googleing that will put you within 5 feet of where my scope was set up. Begin Date/time in UTC was 20110702-035000 End Date/Time was 20110702-041000 Also, I used Stellarium prior to sending my original post to record the approximate Alt/Az just in case that would have helped. Which was Alt/Az Alt 34* 10' 09" Az 138* 34' 08" At the Begin date/time at the above location the GEO began near 26 Aquilae and by the end time it had "moved" to 42 Aquilae. All that time was visible naked eye, beginning at 2nd magnitude, slowly fading. I watched it in my 24" for quite some time, not noting any positions, just watching it because I've only ever been on a handful in my scope, and I do very much enjoy watching them (the tracking is fairly easy ;-) Margin of error, fairly small. Times are right on, although we didn't really click a timer when we stopped watching it in my scope. Positions near those two stars are very accurate, although it wouldn't surprise me if it was off a little. We used those two "bright" stars as markers which we reported en masse to the astronomy club in our observing report, so those fit nicely just to give the members a good idea where we're talking about, and where to check on subsequent nights. May have gone above or below either/both in reality. We aren't used to recording the exact positions/timing on things, although the club pres is HIGHLY, highly accurate in regards to magnitude. And the fact that he noticed a "star" that shouldn't have been there. He is amazing. But I digress... And in his report this morning he says "It was out there again tonight (I was just naked-eye at my home)...5 minutes later at 11:58 pm and farther east of V Aquilae, like 5 or 6 degrees, and only 3rd magnitude tonight... (I know, it's the night sky moving westward at the same time, not the geo satellite).... but not as bright, probably because the sun angle is slowly changing." Location here would be: 42.07623894295552 N -80.069979429245 W approx 700 Feet ASL. Begin Date/Times UTC would be 20110705-035800 (no end time listed) This one is not as critical or precise, just further data to back up the satellite in question if you like doing this sort of thing :-) I was just so excited to see a GEO naked eye after all this time. Thanks to you guys and this wonderful resource to allow me to even have a clue as to what was really going on up there at 22,000 miles :-) Also, what software do you all use to locate the satellites? I would love to be able to do this myself. Thanks! Bill ============================================================================== Bill, to make a confident ID, we need the coordinates of the observation site, the date/time of the observation (UTC preferred), and the position of the object. An estimate of the precision of the data also would be helpful. The more precise the observation, the more confident the ID. Your report contains many of these elements, but I am not certain which ones go together. Ted Molczan Bill Mitchell "It is often better to keep one's mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt" _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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