I attemped to observe the Messenger spacecraft this evening from my well lit skies of Orange Country, CA but had no luck. Using the Horizons ephemeris generator and sky chart software I star hopped to the right area and observed through my 6 inch newtonian at 30x. Limiting magnitude was close to 11 until the moon rose high enough to start lighting up the moisture in the air. Using Ted's formula I had a predicted magnitude of 10.3 but I was unable to see it. The effort was still fun. Brian -118.0 33.8 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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