Tom, >What about seeing a more constant source of light, like the sun reflected >off any of the satellites that are let's say magnitude 4 or brighter. I >realize that earthshine is not always the same brightness and that past a >few days it's not even noticeable, but it wouldn't it be much more likely to >see this than trying to see a flare crossing the moon's disc? I am not sure I understand what you mean. If you are referring to an object of magnitude 4 or brighter crossing the Moon's disk, yes this is a lot more likely to happen, although it would be a relatively rare event as well. However, I don't see how eartshine enters into the picture. Normally, it is negligible. The real challenge is to see a dark satellite in front of the Moon. This would be sometime in the middle of the night. As far as I know, it has never been observed and it probably cannot be observed except for large objects like ISS or the Shuttle. A somewhat similar situation occurs for transits in front of the Sun. The only verifiable observation I am aware of is the video of ISS taken by Ron Dantowitz last December in Canada during the partial solar eclipse. Quite a feat! Bruno Tilgner 48.85N 2.02E UTC+2 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 : Thu Jun 07 2001 - 08:27:13 PDT