I recently purchased an electronic level - Sears Craftsman item #00948295000 Mfr. model #48295. This level is also a "tilt meter". When I place it on top of my Dobsonian, it displays the altitude with an accuracy of 1/10 degree. Ed Cannon and I got our first chance this year to look for USA 186 last night at an altitude of 17 degrees in the north going down. We did not see it at the predicted time, but I pointed the telescope lower and continued to look through my 3 inch finder telescope. I spotted USA 186 just before it went into the trees and clicked my stopwatch. The tilt meter said I was at altitude 13.3 degrees. So this observation is just a guess. USA 186 was approximately 56 seconds late. I was able to combine this with Alberto Rango's observation of 41 seconds late about 8 hours before my observation to generate the following estimated tle: USA 186 1 28888U 05042A 08145.15813235 0.00007500 00000-0 69691-4 0 01 2 28888 97.9436 207.5329 0546000 346.0378 13.9620 14.75626060 06 Mike McCants Austin, TX ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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