05 Nov 16 19:36, you wrote to me:

 ml>> yup, to a point... now i've been taking my beverages and going
 ml>> outside to look for and count satellites i see flying over...
 ml>> sometimes i even make notes about them to i can determine which ones
 ml>> i've seen 

 BF>    Yeah, right.  8-)

yes, absolutely true 

 BF> Can you even determine if they are satellites or "falling stars"?

absolutely... meteors move much faster and are brighter for the most part...
they may also leave trails... satellites do not leave trails unless they are
breaking up on reentry but they are no where near as fast as meteors... also
satellites are fairly steady in brightness or fade in and out... sometimes they
 might flare or flash (fast flare) but they don't blink like airplanes... it is
 extremely easy to tell the three apart...

we do naked eye viewing here and sometimes will use binoculars but they really
need a mount to hold them steady... some folks use large binoculars as well as
photographic devices attached to eh binos or even to a telescope... some
telescopes also have motors on them that can move the scope fast enough to
track a satellite for viewing or photography... i haven't gotten to the point
that i can work on looking for geosync satellites but there are a number of
folks that do... we've even tracked the USAF's X-37B space plane as well as a
number of classified satellites... we recently watched the MUOS 5 craft reach
geosync orbit after it had a failure of the apogee or perigee kick motor... i
forget which it was using but they had to let it go and use the satellite's own
 thrusters to try to reach desired orbit... it finally made it but has to
change its mission due to the lack of fuel it now has...

most of what i see here are Iridium or Cosmos generally on north-south or
south-north tracks... Iridium flares are way cool when you can see them...
we've even seen them in the day time 

we do also see the ISS regularly as well as others on angular tracks and i was
lucky enough, one early morning when i was working at the taxi stand, to be
able to see the HST fly over... HST is tougher for us to see because of its
altitude above the horizon compared with our latitude... it only makes it up
maybe 20 or so degrees (two fist widths at arm's length) and is behind the
trees for us... in this case, being in town instead of out here in the country,
 it was very clear to the south with no trees in the way... it took about five
minutes to pass by...

i also read and occasionally participate on the SEESAT-L mailing list... well
known observers like Ted Molczan, Marco Langbroek, Dr. Jonathan McDowell, and
numerous others participate there posting their sightings for updating the
various TLE (Two Line element) lists that are available... they also help
others figure out what they may have seen in the sky...

http://www.satobs.org/
http://planet4589.org/
http://www.marcolangbroek.nl/
http://sattrackcam.blogspot.nl/
https://www.google.com/search?q=ted+molczan

)\/(ark

Always Mount a Scratch Monkey
Do you manage your own servers? If you are not running an IDS/IPS yer doin' it
wrong...
... Your reasoning is excellent. It's your basic assumptions that are wrong.
---
 * Origin:  (1:3634/12.73)