In a message dated Thu, 21 Sep 2000 23:18:55 -0400, Michael diLorenzo <chisel@borg.com>writes: >then I remembered.....177 degrees azimuth, 57 degrees altitude......but >where the h*** is 177 degrees in my driveway?? Michael -- lets hope you get to see a few more before the stop. I cannot tell from your post how familiar you are with the night sky. You mentioned you could tell roughly where the ecliptic was -- and that would seem to imply you know your way around somewhat. For you and for any who may be more comfortable using a star chart to locate the spot of a predicted Iridium flare in the sky, even though Heavens-Above (www.heavens-above.com) doesn't generate finder star charts for the Iridium flare predictions it generates, you can still use the site for that purpose. Let's say you've set up a custom H-A page for your location and are online to check to see if there are any "monster" flares scheduled. First, as you might normally do, click on the H-A selection for "Iridium Flares - for the next 7 days." Assuming one or more flares stand out, copy down the best flare's date and time, elevation and azimuth (or just clone your browser). Then, on the right, in the "Satellite" column, click on the satellite's name (e.g., Iridium 63). That brings you to the satellite information page. Over on the far right, click on the "Passes" link. Things can get a little tricky here, depending on how many passes you come up with. Find the pass during which the flare will occur. Once you have find it, click on the link for that pass under the "Date" column. That brings you to the pass' star charts (the "Visible Pass Chart" page). If you are lucky, the flare may already be located within the top star chart, which has the time noted in tick marks along the satellite's path. Use those to tick marks to guestimate the point on the chart where the flare should be centered, based on the time predicted for the flare. If the time of the flare is NOT within the box for the upper chart, you can change the chart. Si mply click outside the border of the box in the direction you want the new map to go. It may take one or two "redraws" before you have a chart which contains the time predicted for the flare, but you'll eventually get one. Once you have that, print out the page and note on the chart where the flare should occur (perhaps including the time, date, magnitude -- any other info you want). Then try to find that point in the all-sky star chart in the lower part of the printout and do the same thing, transferring the location predicted for the flare from one to the other. Keep these handy so you'll have the when the time comes. Thus, you'll have two charts, both with the point of the flare marked on them -- one of the entire sky, with constellations, and one zoomed in showing more detail. (Following these steps myself just now, I learned my area has a -7 magnitude flare coming up on the 25th, centered about 15 degrees to the right of Orion's belt. I should know exactly where to look.) Hope you found this helpful -- if not, I hope someone else has. ;-) Jim Cook Germantown, MD 39.2N, 77.3W ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Sep 22 2000 - 11:46:34 PDT