Hey All,
First time to the list so bear with me!
Location: 33.0695°N, 96.7681°W
Timezone: CST/CDT (GMT -5)
I've been going to the Heavens-Above site for
over 3 years and making evening observations of visual
satellites several times a week since then. However, 2
nights ago (Wednesday October 15 at 00:43 CDT) I noted
a "star out of place" just north of the constellation
Cetus. It made a near perfect equilateral triangle
with theta and eta Cetus. I realized the Earth's
shadow was directly north of this. I saw several more
flare ups that night. Last night I saw, I believe the
same ones at 00:31, 01:22 (a cluster of 3 or more),
and 01:50.
In doing research on this I found a posting by
Rainer Kresken that list the optimum dates to observe
this phenomena based on observer's latitude. I have a
number of questions:
1.) He states that best time to see these flares is
when the geosat is less than 25 degrees above the
horizon. Why? I was looking up at nearly 50 degrees,
straight south when I saw them, middle of the night.
2.) I've calculated the ring of geosats to be at -5.45
degrees declination for my latitude. So when the
earth's shadow is south of the celestial equator
(before autumnal equinox), the eclipsing should be
optimal for me. But Rainer's table of optimum dates
for latitudes shows the farther south before equinox
and farther north after equinox. Could someone explain
this better?
Thank you,
Jeff
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