Quote:
Originally Posted by trickybilly
There are spacecrafts listed there too, but their magnitude is "N/A". Is it possible to see some of these http://theskylive.com/spacecraft? I have an 8 inch dob (200/1200). |
An app like SkySafari will give you the apparent magnitude for the hundreds of satellites in its database, their apparent speed across the sky (degrees per second), and will also highlight those that are currently visible from your location. You can set SkySafari up to show the view some time in the future, so you can do some identification and simulation ahead of your observing session, to identify your best targets in advance, and then head outdoors with a list of satellites and their times and locations to catch them.
If you sort by Visual Magnitude, you should be able to find a few with magnitude bright enough to be visible in your telescope, and you can view their movements in the sky view, so you can see which ones are moving slowly enough for you to be able to have a go at observing them. (If you have a "Field of View" circle set up to match your telescope and eyepiece, it will give you a good simulation of how quickly the satellite would pass across the field of view.)
Hope this helps!