Seeing geosats with binoculars

A few hours ago (Tuesday evening March 9 CST), I was able to
see *easily* a number of geostationary satellites with my 8x42
binoculars. This phenomenon occurs for two or three weeks
two times per year. From latitude 30 north the Clarke belt
is at declination -5 (2000). The best time for the effect is
early in the evening, as the Sun-satellite-observer angle is
best then (or conversely late in the morning, but I've never
tried to see them in the morning). Most if not all of the
ones I saw were pretty nearly in the range of RA 10:50 to
11:00. The ones I was able to see with my small handheld
binoculars included the following. (I haven't had time yet
to ID the rest, maybe about half a dozen.)

25004, 97-059A, Echostar 3
28137, 04-001A, Telstar 14
24714, 97-002B, Nahuel 1A
26761, 01-018A, XM-1

At least eleven more were seen using a friend's 8-inch (20 cm)
telescope at about 50x and later 87x, and we stopped at about
11:00 PM CST. (A year or two ago we did this one weekend
evening until about 2:00 AM and saw about 60 Clarke belt
objects.)

I doubt that the troll will see this message, because I don't
think he actually follows this group. He just cross-posted
to us from elsewhere. But if he were interested, this would
be incontrovertible proof (as if it hadn't been offered in
abundance -- but this is one more type of observation). You
can find these objects, which can get up to +4 magnitude.
They brighten, as as you watch them, the stars pass by them,
because they are standing still over a spot on the equator.
And there are some clusters of these objects. After a few
minutes at their brightest, they fade out as they go into
the Earth's shadow. Patient folks can watch them reappear
as they later exit the Earth's shadow. (Of course with a
reasonable telescope that can reach +12 magnitude, quite a
few of them can be seen anytime of year.) Most of these
seasons, at least two or three of these satellites get
bright enough to be seen without binoculars -- an extra +3
star appears and disappears (except that it doesn't move
with the real stars). There's one pair low in the ESE
that are about .25 degree apart, a close pair easy to see
with 8x42 -- fun! They are two Panamsats, but I can't
remember which two, because there's a third one there
that apparently isn't operational any longer and doesn't
flare like the others.

Here's a message I wrote to SeeSat-L about flaring geosats
a few weeks ago:

http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Feb-2004/0069.html

The peak of the phenomenon is moving south now, so for the far
north it's pretty much over until September, but I would say
that it will last at least another week at latitude 30 north.
It's not highly precise. I think the "season" for here lasts
about three weeks total, although usually the weather doesn't
allow them to be seen for the entire period. They're also
easier when there's not a lot of moonlight, of course.

By the way, there's another entire group of non-operational
formerly geostationary satellites that are now drifting and
also tumbling that can be seen flashing, sometimes easily
without binoculars. But that's another story.

Ed Cannon - - Austin, Texas, USA
(Remove "donotspam".)
http://wnt.cc.utexas.edu/~ecannon/satellite.htm