Help on Geo flashers

From: Steve Newcomb (snewcomb@mail2.gcnet.net)
Date: Mon Sep 10 2001 - 23:36:22 EDT


I have never seen a geo flasher and I don't want to miss the oppurtunity
coming up near October 6 for me. I live at 39 degree north and from reading
know that I need to look near the celestrial equator, but would some one
give me some good flashers norad numbers so that I can predict their
position in the star field ? Is Oct 6 the best for me and  how many days
plus or minus from that time? How far below the horizon should the sun be?
Thank you in advance for any and all advice.
Over the weekend I went with my wife and 6 year old daughter to Seneca
Rocks, WV. I had a prediction for Iridium 15 to flash 20.16.13 local time at
358 az 41 el to -1 mag and while getting my bearings with only a few stars
visible because it is not yet completely dark yet, approx 50 seconds before
there is the an approx -4 flare near polaris. We all saw it and I told them
to keep watching because that wasn't even the predicted one. After coming
home I found that Iridium 82 was the lucky brighter of the two surprise. My
daughter just turned 6 in July, her first was when she was 4 in 1999, maybe
the youngest flare watcher who has seen I know more than 10 flares and has
also seen the Alpha space station repeatedly and the Mir space station
before its demise.





-----------------------------------------------------------------
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/sat/seesat/seesatindex.html



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Sep 20 2001 - 17:55:53 EDT