How to view Iridium Satellites?
Von Fourche
I can find and spot satellites. Now I want to see Iridium flashes. How
hard is it to see the flashes? How do find the flashes?
Thanks!
Skywise
news:fo2dnWrWov-Rk1nX...@earthlink.com:
Brian
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Von Fourche
"Skywise" <in...@oblivion.nothing.com> wrote in message
news:pkUwm.197374$4f4....@newsfe11.ams2...
> "Von Fourche" <khon...@hotmail.com> wrote in
> news:fo2dnWrWov-Rk1nX...@earthlink.com:
>
>> I can find and spot satellites. Now I want to see Iridium flashes.
>> How
>> hard is it to see the flashes? How do find the flashes?
>>
>> Thanks!
>
> www.heavens-above.com
I know about the site. But when it says a flash if five miles away do I
have to drive to that spot five miles away or can I see it from the backyard
where I'm at now? One is shown to be 2 miles away with a magnitude of -8 at
flare center and -7 at my location. So I can still see it at my location?
Patty Winter
In article <WomdnQjUH8LBjlnX...@earthlink.com>,
Von Fourche <khon...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> One is shown to be 2 miles away with a magnitude of -8 at
>flare center and -7 at my location. So I can still see it at my location?
At -7, you should be able to see it during the day.
Patty
Skywise
> I know about the site. But when it says a flash if five miles away do
> I
> have to drive to that spot five miles away or can I see it from the
> backyard where I'm at now? One is shown to be 2 miles away with a
> magnitude of -8 at flare center and -7 at my location. So I can still
> see it at my location?
No, you'd don't have to drive over there. You could walk instead.
:)
But seriously, that just means you'd need to be along that path
to see the maximum brightness. Being away from the center line
simply results in a dimmer flare. As you saw, the centerlien would
have been -8, but your location is still -7 which is still very
bright.
Trust me, you'll see it - unless you're looking in entirely the
wrong direction!
Rob
Well, if you are using HA for after dark predictions, just look in the
correct direction, and you can't miss them. Daylight IR flares are
another subject.
Rob
Patty Winter
In article <8s9l07lb1u59a7idq...@4ax.com>,
Rob <rw...@concentric.net> wrote:
>On Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:04:15 -0400, "Von Fourche"
><khon...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I can find and spot satellites. Now I want to see Iridium flashes. How
>>hard is it to see the flashes? How do find the flashes?
>
>correct direction, and you can't miss them. Daylight IR flares are
>another subject.
Have you seen any daytime flares, Rob? I've been meaning to try.
I've actually been doing more Iridium hunting recently after picking
up a nice iPhone app called Sputnik. It also tracks ISS. Last night
I caught two Iridia and ISS within about 10 minutes.
Dunno whether Von is still around this group 1.5 years after posting
that query. :-)
Patty
DougD
I've got a couple of favorite "cheats" that I use for Iridium
spotting.. Using HA prediction charts, and sometimes
along with Starry Night software, I'll check for the path
of the sat through any major constellations, and then
do a "run through" in SN to see where the sat will
rise, where it will flare, and for how long. SN won't
give you accurate magnitude numbers, but it will
show the point of maximum flare. And the exact
time, but that has some quirks as SN can be off
by up to a minute in their flying mode. It's a consistant
error though, so once you figure it out, it's easy to work
around and get a good time prediction that matches
up with HA. And then finally matching up the path of
the sat with known bright objects, especially those of
the major constellations can give a good prediction of
where to be looking. You can't get that so easy just
from looking at a static image as the path is not a
straightline to the observer over time.
For daylight, which I admit I've not had great luck with,
doing this type of flyover test before can again give
me a good time for the max. magnitude, and also the
position in the sky. I've used that flare time to set an
alarm on a wristwatch and I'll set a 10 second bump
so I can count down while position my line of sight,
and on the two or three that I have spotted in daylight,
had I not timed it out and did the flyover for location,
there'd been no way I would have ever seen them..
Now, who has any good tips on NOSS spotting?
d.
Patty Winter
In article <J7FOp.42156$F25....@newsfe04.iad>, DougD <m...@here.com> wrote:
[unneeded quotage removed]
> I've used that flare time to set an
>alarm on a wristwatch and I'll set a 10 second bump
>so I can count down while position my line of sight,
>and on the two or three that I have spotted in daylight,
>had I not timed it out and did the flyover for location,
>there'd been no way I would have ever seen them..
That's one thing I really like about that Sputnik app is that
it beeps for the final few seconds before the flare, so I can
just listen while staring at the sky and don't have to be
looking at a watch.
Sputnik isn't as accurate as H-A, so I use them in conjunction
with each other, but it is right most of the time, and I do
like having an audible cue of when the Iridium should appear.
Patty
Rob
wrote:
Hi Patty,
Been a few years since I tried for daytimers. As I remember, about
3-5 seen as predicted, out of 20 or so tries. Probably all -6m or
brighter. Difficult to get az-alt hints during daylight. No build-up
to the flare like at night. More light a flash bulb from 1960. Looking
up when the Sun is in your vision field causes a lot of tearing and
blinking.
At night it is easy to look in the correct place if stars are visible.
Also, at night the sat is nearly always visible for some distance
prior to the flare.
Just signed on with Agent (Google Groups went South on me) and I never
thought about the date, the dates have moved out of my visual field,
lol.
Rob
DougD
>That's one thing I really like about that Sputnik app is that
>it beeps for the final few seconds before the flare, so I can
>just listen while staring at the sky and don't have to be
>looking at a watch.
>
>Sputnik isn't as accurate as H-A, so I use them in conjunction
>with each other, but it is right most of the time, and I do
>like having an audible cue of when the Iridium should appear.
I'm lucky that my watch has a nice loud alarm on it, though I
gotta wonder what my neighbors think sometimes when I'm
out standing on the back porch, my watch starts to beep and
I quickly start staring up into the sky..
I have to think that something like the google sky app
(which I've only seen others use on an Iphone) would be
useful for trying to locate where a daytime flare would
pop up. I would imagine by now someone has plugged
in sat. prediction and tracking into some type of app like that.
d.
Patty Winter
In article <HQRQp.56286$F25....@newsfe04.iad>, DougD <m...@here.com> wrote:
> I have to think that something like the google sky app
>(which I've only seen others use on an Iphone) would be
>useful for trying to locate where a daytime flare would
>pop up. I would imagine by now someone has plugged
>in sat. prediction and tracking into some type of app like that.
That's a good point, Doug. I have an older iPhone that doesn't
have the sophisticated positional capabilities of the newer ones,
but if I understand correctly, there are apps that can tell when
the phone is pointed at a fairly precise position in the sky. It
would be a challenge to do that for something that's moving faster
than a planet, but I presume it's doable. That would really help
with finding daytime Iridium flares.
Patty
DougD
>That's a good point, Doug. I have an older iPhone that doesn't
>have the sophisticated positional capabilities of the newer ones,
>but if I understand correctly, there are apps that can tell when
>the phone is pointed at a fairly precise position in the sky. It
>would be a challenge to do that for something that's moving faster
>than a planet, but I presume it's doable. That would really help
>with finding daytime Iridium flares.
Yes, I was incredibly impressed the first time I saw it being
used during setup for our local astronomy group here. One
of the groups son had the Google Sky app on his iphone and
he was holding it up to the night sky, and it was just like overlaying
a star chart over the night sky, except that it tracked perfectly as
he swept it back and forth, up/down!! Pretty cool, and I have to
think as long as you know where the flare is going to occur, and
with good timing, it would be fairly straightforward to use that
app/phone combo as a sight during daylight (and of course
at night for the less ambitious among us... can ya tell I'm
jealous of all the toys..)..
Come to think of it, couldn't a goto type scope be used
for the same purpose during daylight? I don't have one, but I'm
guessing that as they can be driven from Starry Night, etc. that
you should be able to "attach" it to a sat., and then track it along
it's path, and then either use the scope or a finder scope to spot
the daylight Iridium, maybe even capture on video! I've got about
a dozen night time I've grabbed on video, would be great to snag
a daylight!
Ah, one more thing to justify buying more stuff...
Doug
Dan Minge
Minge