Thanks to Gregg Hendry I knew when the CALIPSO satellite was going to pass within three miles of my house early this morning, September 8th, 2006. I attempted to see its green pulsating LASER from a road at 3:23:38 AM CDT (8:23:38 UTC.) I was close to line that passed through 42d 29m 5s N by 92d 24m 22 W. To see when and where to look, this time anyway, I carefully manipulated the planetarium program I use, called TheSky, until I was able to align the satellite on the zenith at high magnification. I determined the coordinates for two times, three seconds apart. I plotted the two positions using Google Earth. I used Google Earth to obtain an estimated coordinate for my GPS as well. I then traveled to a place on a road that I am familiar with. Three high school students went with me in that wee hour of the morning today. Each of us took up a position about 0.1 mile apart because that was a convenient measure using my car's odometer. I realize that that may have been too far apart. Other than hearing a great horned owl hoot loudly very close to the car as we were setting up and other than speaking with a curious policeman at 3:30 AM, we experienced nothing exciting. BTW, that was the 14th time since 1970 that the police have asked me what I am up to. :~) I always have an answer that cannot be improvised. I just tell it like it is and they usually have no idea what I'm talking about. I hope to try again to see the LASER in 16 days. The moon was terribly bright but the sky was clear. I wonder if that bleached it out? I don't know if TheSky uses geocentric or geodetic coordinates. If it's simpler to use geocentric coordinates than that's probably what it uses. Before the next pass in 16 days I hope to obtain a free version of this http://www.agi.com/products/desktopApp/stkFamily/modules/core/stk/ powerful ground plotting program, assuming my computer can handle it. The TLE from Heavens-Above and Celestrak were identical I believe. The one from Space Track was very nearly the same, being a little different in time but that's it. Here's the two I worked with. I cannot remember which one was from where. CALIPSO 1 1 29108U 06016B 06248.37082027 .00000166 00000-0 46943-4 0 1256 2 29108 098.2068 190.2809 0001013 066.2074 293.9227 14.57102304 18925 CALIPSO 2 1 29108U 06016B 06249.40086987 .00000137 00000-0 40376-4 0 1263 2 29108 098.2071 191.2964 0001038 061.5200 298.6085 14.57102477 19070 (1) Can someone tell me what longitude I should have been at for this latitude: 42d 29m 5s N? (2) Will the longitudinal geocentric to geodetic adjustment for this particular satellite always be the same for my location? If it is then I would think I would only need to add or subtract so much E-W distance to whatever I come up with using TheSky. If it's cloudy on the next pass I will try my night vision scope to see if the infrared LASER aboard the CALIPSO penetrates the cloud. Thanks in advance! Tom Iowa USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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