satellite watching

[qwerty guy]

If you go to http://www.heavens-above.com they give you all the tools you need to maximize sky gazing.

What I love to do, given my time restraints, is to watch for and catch uritium flares.

You can put in your address and it will give you times and dates and locations when you can catch one.

Keep in mind, that the brighter something is, the lower the number. For an example, something that is rated "5" is much dimmer then something "-5"

-5 is very bright... uritium flares get as bright at -8. At 5:04:23pm on monday, I have a -8 flare that is going to pass over me and I plan to catch it.

You can even have fun with people. You can very very easily using the sky map and satellite data, know the exact second and place one will appear... well, people get freeked out when you "cause" a light in the sky, very much so when you happen to see that there will be 2 of them about 40 seconds apart in about the same spot in the sky so as they start bothering you for the "trick" you go "here... I'll do it again....." Oh it's fun, and after you get phone calls as they get excited about star gazing also.

Create an account, and go to the main page and go to satelites, uritium flares. it'll ask for 24 hours, 7 days.. ect. You can even look for ones that you'll be able to see in the daytime.

The flares by the way, are just reflections of sunlight off the solar panels of satellites.

Have fun people, and it costs very little time.

[speerjp1]

I've been interested in sky gazing ever since I took astronomy in college as my science elective. I have watched satellites pass over before, but never seen the flares. I'll have to check it out sometime. Thanks for the link. :thumb

[qwerty guy]

I've been interested in sky gazing ever since I took astronomy in college as my science elective. I have watched satellites pass over before' date=' but never seen the flares. I'll have to check it out sometime. Thanks for the link. :thumb[/quote']

It's just such a great resource, especually for people like me who look for quality vs time stuff. They give the exact second and location to be looking for stuff, and that to me is great. If you have any questions let me know, the site is very user friendly so I don't expect you would.

[qwerty guy]

So, I'm off work all week because of weather, and so I figure, stay up one night and check out a couple comets, some satellites...

I'm up at 2am.. I grab my scope, tripod, digital camera, and digital cam corder. I prep everything, putting attachments on, etc.

I then gear up. Long underware, layers, big boots. It's 0 out so I gotta be set.

I have note cards for each item I'm going to view.. it's position and data.. I mean, I am SET. I'm going to get good pictures and video of these things, and be out in the cold as little as possible.....

So I grab all this and step out the door, triumphantly into a cloudy sky.

I'm so stupid.... been so long sense I've done this, I forgot the very first thing you do is look out the window lol.

Anyway.. web says it's going to be clear in 2 days, so I'll get some photos of a comet then.

[IM4given]

If you find any UFOs out there, be sure to tell them Janet says "Hey!" :Green

[Anon]

I used to watch satellites when we lived in South Dakota.... never seen flares though. That's cool!

[qwerty guy]

I do highly suggest catching a flare. Given the link I put above, it's as simple as walking outside and looking in the right place... takes only a couple min.

If you wanna be shocked, wait for a -8mag for the first one. Magnitude is a doubler.. -1 is twice as bright as 0. -2 is twice as bright as -1..

When I see a -7 or -8 on the list, I make it a point to catch it, because it's bright enough to cause people to call 911 about a ufo lol.

Anything -5 or brighter is worth catching now and then. that's bright enough you can even see them in the day time.

[Sojourner]

Mucho coolo, qwerty guy! I've always enjoyed watching the space station and shuttle go over, and this will be fun, too.

Many thanks! :thumb

[qwerty guy]

::shivers::

I just got back from video taping comet 17P Holmes

It was snowing today, and will be tomorrow, but here it is 3am and I had a window of clear skys... so although it's -6 degrees out, and in the middle of the night, I got some footage of it Weeeeeeeee

now back to bed

Oh yea, and police have no concept of light pollution. As they checked me out for having 2 cameras and a telescope in the middle of a park that closes as ten, they refused to stop shining flashlights in my eyes.

Happens every time........

[qwerty guy]

SO am I the only geek here or is anyone else taking the 4 min to check out a flair?

[qwerty guy]

I don't know if I've talked about this yet, so I will now, then add what I just did tonight....

No need to focus binoculars. How they work is the main lens expands the light, then the view lens straightens it out, instead of focusing it in. The negitive is that it's zoom is set, you can't zoom in or out. The ones I have are Bushnell perma focus 10x50 power. They are about $60.00 at Cabella's.

2 GREAT POSITIVES!!!: Sporting events; Player hits the ball and you can follow it in focus all the way out of the field. 10 yard line or 50 yard line, the play never goes out of focus.

WHY I HAVE THEM, POSITIVE TWO: With normal focus you zoom on a star, focus it in, and you see a couple fuzzy stars you couldn't see before. You focus them in, you might grab one or two more. With no need to focus, you look at say, a single star in the big dipper that by eye seems alone, and you'll see more stars then you can count. ANY little bit of light hitting these binos will be in focus and now visible. Star gazing becomes increadible, and comets? EASY to see the tail.

What I did tonight, is I was thinking about how the light leaves the binoculars straight... so I grabbed my video camera ran outside and aimed at the full moon. With full zoom on my digital camera, the entire moon is still in view, although it's edges are almost touching the top and bottom of the screen.

I held the binoculars infront of the camera, and after about 2 seconds of the camera adjusting to the zoom, I had a clear shot of the moon that only about 1/5-1/6th of the moon can even fit on my screen at a time. It came in crystal clear, with enough detail that I think if I snap the binoculars in half and stack them, I'll see the moon lander LOL.

If you're into star gazing, you must pick up binoculars like this. If you're into shots of comets and such and want a cheap way to get great zoom on your camera, this works. Or, if you're into stalking, I aimed at a fire hydrant about 1/10 a mile away and all I saw was a big bolt in my view finder, I could almost make out the writing stamped in the metal

[Anon]

I think its very cool....we did stargazing when I was a teen and we lived in south dakota, under bazillions of visible stars.

Now I live where you're lucky to see the Big Dipper through all the city lights and its not feasible for me to break away from the house and go somewhere in the country so....will have to wait til God moves us back to the country...someday...retirement...LOL.

[speerjp1]

Last night after church we were standing out in the parking lot and we got to see a very nice satellite passing overhead. It was just after the sun had gone below the horizon and you could just see a faint glow in the western sky. The satellite started in the south and traversed north. It was obviously not a plane or a star, so I got to explain what it was to a few young people and they thought it was really cool.

[Sojourner]

I had just come out of church a few weeks ago and looked up just in time to see the space station passing over. I've seen it plenty of times before, but only because I had looked the times up online and knew when and where to look. So it was kinda cool to just look up and catch it at random.

[qwerty guy]

So I've found a lot of info online... and I'm interested ever sense my binocular/camera combo fun.... I'm seriously looking into building my own telescope.

Honestly? I know it seems stupid when you have people who do it all the time, and study such stuff, and enter competions and stuff, but I'm really shocked at how low a power they get.

Stability would be a factor... you zoom too much and breathing makes it shake... so ummm, then why touch the thing? have a digital camera at the very end, and a cable to a telivision, so you can view without wobble.... ah what ever.... I don't really have the time, but I'm willing to lose some sleep for this I think.... I'm 90% there.