Patrick McCray asked: > I am working on a book abut Operation Moonwatch and am curious about > satellite tracking today. Roughly, about how many people do > you think are engaged in tracking satellites these days? Welcome to the list, Patrick. If by tracking, you mean making precise positional observations of satellite transits, then I estimate there are about 20 observers worldwide. I know 15 observers who reported at least 100 such observations during a recent 12 month period, most of them via SeeSat-L. Six observers were from the U.K., four from the U.S.A.; one each from Canada, France, Italy, South Africa and Sweden. In total, they produced about 22,000 observations. The U.K. observers contributed about 75 percent of all observations. If by tracking, you mean all persons who observe satellites visually for any reason, then I estimate there are many thousands world-wide. Most are interested in the aesthetics of satellite observation. The following information may be helpful in gauging interest (stats on page hits were compiled in Dec 2004): The Visual Satellite Observer's Home Page provides detailed information about most aspects of the hobby, and receives in excess of 25,000 page hits per day: http://www.satobs.org/satintro.html Chris Peat's Heavens-Above web site, provides accurate predictions of passes of most of the thousands of satellites in orbit, and receives about 80,000 page hits per day: http://www.heavens-above.com/main.asp?Lat=0&Lng=0&Alt=0&Loc=Unspecified&TZ=CET About 600 observers from around the world share their observations and stay abreast of the latest developments via the SeeSat-L mailing list, which has been in operation for nearly 11 years: http://satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html Ted Molczan ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Sep 30 2005 - 17:51:32 EDT