In article . com, galwacco wrote:

WOW Doug!! What a lesson!
I've done what you told me! Printed a whole bunch of flares, like I
said the weather is pretty bad in here, but it seems that it will
clean up for the weekend.
I can't wait to do some spottings! Hey! I think I've been beaten by
the bug!!


Well, good for you! The key is patience, and NOT trying to spot
everyone that's listed. Try and limit your choices to flares that will
have a magnitude from about -4 to -8, -9 (the brightest). Going after
the -1's can be difficult as they aren't going to flare that bright, and
the time before they peak is much visibly shorter, which makes them
more difficult to find. Starting at a -4, you should be able to see
the sat. as it transits from below the horizon with the naked eye right
up until the flare, and then continue to see it travel on from there.
And this is even more important if you have light pollution from the
location you are in. It's worth a trip if you can get out of town and
away from city light, you just need to find that spot and put those
coord. into your prediction software.
Well, great luck with it all, let us know when you get to see
your first -7 or -8!!

D.
Oh, one last hint: I've found that if I say, take a months worth of
predictions from Heaven's Above, and then I go back to see what's
coming up after that month has passed, sometimes those predictions
will have changed. It's worth it to go back and update your predictions
during the week that you will be looking as I've seen for whatever
reasons, sat magnitudes can drop or go up over a period of time relative
to when the prediction was first made. And depending where you are,
you may find that there may be a whole month or more that goes by
where there aren't any really bright observations to be made. It just
works out where the Iridiums path reletive to you can shift over time,
and then you find yourself "stuck" in between the best paths for your
location. They will come back, I've noticed now that I've moved further
north, that there are more periods of low observation for maybe up
to two months at a time, whereas there were always something to see
when I was lower down in the Midwest US.
Again, good luck!