Regarding observing satellites visually the link
below, VSOHP, has information and links to all aspects of this activity;
there are more Iridium and other photos, information about satellites and
their missions as well as links to getting Commercial software, shareware
and free software for observing
artificial earth satellites. The site started by
Jeff Hunt, Neil Clifford & Bart de Pontieu is now maintained by Ted Molczan.
The Belgian Working Group for Satellites pages
at VSOHP are maintained by Kurt Jonckheere: Visual
Satellite Observers Home Page
I have found that by exploring the VSOHP site and its links, any question anyone has about satellites can be answered, for example Sue Wordens FAQ pages are a good start for the novice, as well as SeeSat Lists archive and Mark Wade's Encyclopedia Astronomica. A quick start to observing is a condensed where to go and what to do to observe satellites, from beginner, (just to go out and look once in a while), to intermediate (actually collect orbital data), to advanced, (collect and analyze data).
The Belgian Working Group for Satellites a part of the Belgian Astronomical
Society posts
extensive data on flash patterns for numerous satellites and is here.
Don Gardner's Home page
with extensive satellite related links. Maryland.
Tristan Cools website
with many "Track Pics". Belgium
Dale Ireland's website with a
number of very interesting photos. Seattle, Washington.
Daniel Deak's website
Quebec, Canada.
Ed Cannon's Website
Autin, TX
MAG relays visible ISS, Mir, shuttle passes as
well as other interesting astro-phenomenon to the local Weather teams with
FOX and CBS and time permitting they will announce this information on
the weather segments of their news broadcasts. Check out the weather and
astronomy links at their websites.
The local Fox affiliate WHBQ13
The local CBS affiliate WREG
3
A couple of other local astronomy related sites by Memphis Organizations
are
The Memphis Astronomical Society.
Pink Palace and
Sharpe Planetarium.
For a look at where the art of Telescopic imaging is going in capturing Satellites in orbit, visit Philip Chien's Telescopic Imaging Page at VSOHP.
Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center maintains a site with a new Astro-photo featured daily.
Other informative sites of interest, Jonathans
Space Reports, Florida Today and of Course NASA's
OIG.
Want a print of any photograph? Order photos and other stuff.
Discussions
Deja New hosts a general discussion at sci.astro.satellites.visual
Orbital Elements used by MAG for our observing program, which include BWGS priority objects, ISS, Mir, Iridium tumblers, Decaying objects, objects of interest to researchers and objects for which elsets are not available from usual sources are here, (10k)-> MAG.zipUpdated twice weekly
A description of the BWGS program is here.
Mike McCants' elements page is here ,There are many useful programs and numerous collections of element sets at this site.
Mike's alldat.tle file in zip form (approx. 500K)
can be downloaded here.
Download Software for compiling Satellite observations
and generating *.tles based on
these observations, a DOS program that will run
in Win95, Jan 2003 release By George Lewis:
Interactive
Orbit Determination
A companion package to IOD is Obsentry for recording
Satellite observations in a standardized
format for use with IOD, also for DOS & Win95,
By George Lewis: Obsentry.zip
Mike McCants' programs page has "Fitelem" a program for compiling observations and creating *.tle's, and for a quick look at Satellite passes for a given location try his "Quicksat".
Rick Von Glahn's Element Manager is at his site, extremely for managing element set in a windows environment.
Rob Matson's Skymap, Iridflar and a Tycho database
of stars to magnitude 11.0 can be found
at this
ftp site maintained by VSOHP. Mike also posts skymap v 6.4 and
the hipparchos
star database at his site.
NOTES
I'll be updating as better photos become available with an emphasis on tumbling Iridium flash patterns and BWGS priority object photometric periods. I will also begin adding skycharts to accompany the photos for better analysis/identification.
Acknowledgements: First to Jeff, Bart, Neil & Kurt for maintaining the VSOHP and re-igniting interest in an enjoyable and useful activity. Many thanks to SeeSatL members in their assistance Mike McCants, George Lewis, Russell Eberst, Rob Matson, Don Gardner and many others whose names, e-mail addresses and websites can be found at the Visual Satellite Observers Home Page. Also many thanks to the authors of the various software packages which are available through the VSOHP site.
If you'd like to forward a comment
I'm at: nixj.geo@yahoo.com