Rob's SkyMap and most planetarium programs give Date/Time: 2008/ 5/25 3:15:17 UTC Sun 4h 9m 14.55s +21° 0' 1.3" 1.012943 31'34.7" SkyMap (on keypress "t" in the map) and other predictions programs give phase and range, but with the Sun's (RA,Dec) and your satellite positions (RA1,Dec1) in decimal degrees the angle can also be computed: =DEGREES(acos(SIN(Dec*PI()/180)*SIN(Dec1*PI()/180)+COS(Dec*PI()/180)*COS(Dec1*PI()/180)*COS((RA-RA1)*PI()/180))) I have a spreadsheet that computes the phase directly from the Sun's hexagesimal coordinates, and the IOD formatted strings. (acos is defined in a VBA macro using ATAN2 and sin=sqrt(1 -cos^2)) (I get 102.508 and 94.345, SkyMap shows 102.6 and 94.1) ----- Original Message ----- 26473 00 047A 8336 B 20080525031517340 17 25 1341631+491146 78 M 26473 00 047A 8336 B 20080525031555530 17 25 1518611+640506 98 N I do not have the tools to calculate what the phase angle or range was at the timing noted - I'm sure others can do this. TULSA1: COSPAR 8336 +36.1397, -95.9838, 201 m ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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