HI Rob I am an astroimager not a satellite chaser so I don't always appreciate the finer aspects of satellite chasing. For astroimaging using my GOTO mount, a difference of 100 to 150 miles makes little difference in pointing accuracy. For satellites it sounds like 17 miles is a big deal. That makes sense now that I think of it because the satellites are much closer than are the nebulae I usually chase. I just picked the coordinates for Oakland Calif for my GOTO controller, it was already in the database and I was too lazy to search the internet for a site to let me get more accurate. I'll not do that again :-) on the time thing, I could still be a couple of minutes off. I think I can recover the time delta but I will have to work on that this evening when I return home. Here's the final image that one frame was used to make: http://www.narrowbandimaging.com/ngc2264_cone_foxfur_ap180_img6303_page.htm it is a collection of Halpha, [Sulfur II] and Blue frames. The particular frame that caught the satellite was taken with a blue filter. I sort of imagine had I used the emission line filters it would not have shown up very well and I am confident the stars would have been greatly attenuated. If I am understanding your last statement, are you saying this was a recent launch? Pardon my ignorance in this regard. Thanks and best regards Richard ----- Original Message ----- From: "Matson, Robert" <ROBERT.D.MATSON@saic.com> To: "'Richard Crisp'" <rdcrisp@earthlink.net>; <b_gimle@algonet.se> Cc: <bjorn.gimle@tietoenator.com>; "'Seesat-L'" <SeeSat-L@satobs.org> Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 9:25 AM Subject: RE: Richard's mystery GEO satellite near Cone Nebula >> here's the latitude/longitude of my observing location >> >> Lat: 37.718537 37:43:6.733N >> Lon: -122.066474 122:03:59.306W > > Richard, these coordinates are significantly different from what's > posted on your website image -- more than 17 miles away! When using > the correct coordinates, Ekran 8 is the best match, though it is > still not a great match. Ekran 8 would have been early by 6 minutes > and 20 seconds -- in other words, if the track was perfect, your > exposure would have ended at 3:56:20 rather than 3:50. This is a > pretty big error for an ephemeris whose epoch is only a little over > a day old. > > By the way, this is a terrific image. I'm having no trouble picking > out 14th magnitude stars! --Rob > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: > http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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