>Last year Rainer Kresken posted info on seeing GEOSATS flaring just prior >to Earth shadow entry. The dates as a function of latitude are below and >we are approaching that time for the northern hemisphere. > >latitude optimum date (Day/month) >-80 01/09 >-60 04/09 >-40 09/09 >-20 15/09 >0 23/09 >+20 30/09 >+40 07/10 >+60 12/10 >+80 15/10 I've tried to compute these days for myself but I got different results. When I calculated the day for, say a latitude of +40°, I found September 9 instead of October 7, the result belonging to the latitude with the other sign. After some thinking I found out why: I assumed that the solar panels of the satellites track the sun, but I guess Rainer Kresken assumed they didn't. This explains why the dates belonging to the latitudes get swapped. A simple correction was made in my program so that it does give the right results. Now I'm wondering if all geostationary satellites keep their solar panels fixed, i.e. they don't track the sun. It seems very plausible, but I can imagine that it is a little effort to let the panels track the sun. Are there any geosats with solar panels that do track the sun? Here is my list for the March 20, 2001 Equinox, with and without tracking solar panels: Without With Tracking Latitude Month/Day Month/Day 80.0000 2 26 4 12 60.0000 2 28 4 10 40.0000 3 5 4 6 20.0000 3 12 3 29 0.0000 3 21 3 21 -20.0000 3 29 3 12 -40.0000 4 6 3 5 -60.0000 4 10 2 28 -80.0000 4 12 2 26 So for me here at latitude +52° the optimum for non-tracking satellites has just passed, and clouds are keeping me inside for way too long now. Regards, Cees Bassa ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 : Fri Mar 02 2001 - 12:26:15 PST