> Perhaps the northern latitudes are seeing greater illumination for this time > of the season. Any comments from those in the southern latitudes? I've found a solid magnitude estimate for the ISS since the solar panals were installed and it's held up over tens of observations and it's worked with my friends in other parts of the country. I don't know how to state this precisely as some of you might tell me it's not totally correct, but I"ll give it a try. If you watch the ISS pass and the sun is at your back, it'll be a bright pass (magnitude -2 or -3 or maybe even -4). example: the ISS is passing southeast to northwest or northwest to southeast and it's evening - the iss passes to the east of you and the sun is to the west of you. the ISS also takes on a whitish color. now, if the ISS passes between you and the sun, the pass will be much dimmer (maybe magnitude 0, -1 or even -2 sometimes). example: the ISS passes from northwest to southwest in the evening and the sun is below the western horizon. the ISS also takes on an orangish color (like the solar panals are semi-translucent or something, you see the same orange color from the iss panels on some shuttle photographs taken during a fly-around when the sun is some angle in relation to the ISS. The only thing I can't predict is flares from the ISS so it's a treat when it happens. I guess there will be quite a bit more flare opportunity these next few weeks as the ISS is in some odd orientation for awhile and thus more potential for flares to occur off the service module and zarya solar panals. so that's my tested and true magnitude predictor for the ISS. Much more magnitude variation than when the ISS was without the P6 solar array structure. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- de fcc sgn, Robert Smathers (roberts@nmia.com) Albuquerque, NM USA Robert's Satellite TV/Baseball page: http://www.nmia.com/~roberts/ Proud owner, 5 TODYWEN(!) and 8 BUD-lites - Albuquerque Intl. Downlinkport Satellite Services Guide columnist, MONITORING TIMES Magazine ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jun 03 2001 - 21:56:24 PDT