As has already been pointed out, one must distinguish between *flaring* geosats (operational satellites) and *flashing* ones (non-operational and tumbling, most now only nearly geosynch). For reference, very neat short "movies" of a group of flaring geosats entering and exiting the Earth's shadow are at this location: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/stardial/satellites.html Here are my best determinations of the flaring geosats that I saw, using handheld 10x50 binoculars, last October 5 UTC: 20872 90-091A SBS 6 OR 20873 90-091B Galaxy 6 (only one of them) 20872 90-091A SBS 6 AND 20873 90-091B Galaxy 6 (both, as a pair) 21906 92-013A Galaxy 5 23199 94-049A Brasilsat B1 23670 95-049A Telstar 402R 24714 97-002B Nahuel 1 A 24936 97-050A GE 3 25152 98-006A Brasilsat B3 26038 99-071A Galaxy 11 or 22205 92-072A Galaxy 7 The first two were seen together around one RA/Dec position, but only one of them was seen around a different position. My report is at: http://www2.satellite.eu.org/sat/seesat/Oct-2000/0111.html My location that night was 30.315N, 97.866W, 280m. Here's one of Ron Lee's reports of his successful results when using binoculars one evening: http://www2.satellite.eu.org/sat/seesat/Oct-1999/0062.html As he says, if you use a telescope you will see more of them, but it's pretty neat to see such far-away satellites with binoculars. So those who have both can have even more fun! Unfortunately, the Moon is full this October 2, so it will cause some trouble for those of us who will be trying to see flaring geosynchs from 30 degrees north. But I plan to try! Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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
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