I've seen it before, back when I lived in College Station, TX and agree with Scott's magnitude estimate. Definitely no brighter than tenth magnitude. It's actually one of the tougher "well-known" objects to observe.

Being approximately a seven-inch sphere, it's unlikely it could ever "flare" like the Iridiums.

I notice very few satellites appear with magnitudes in Guide, at least for me. This must be one which does, albeit wrongly.

Grant

--- In guide-user@yahoogroups.com, s.kranz1@... wrote:
>
> I don't think it would ever to get 4th magnitude, unless it flares like the Iridium's do.
>
> I've observed Vanguard 1 several times over the last couple years, and I'd estimate it to be between 10th and 12th magnitudes.
>
> Plan ahead though; it travels through my 1-degree field of view pretty fast!
>
> My plan of attack? I get elements on the day I'm observing. Find a good high pass and then look to see when it passes through some easily identifiable fields of view. I synch my laptop clock with the atomic time. Move my telescope to the selected field of view 5 to 10 minutes early, and wait.
>
> My last observation was back in October at the Heart of America Star Party.
>
> -Scott Kranz
>
>
> Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "jarisuomela"
> Sender: guide-user@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2013 18:23:31
> To:
> Reply-To: guide-user@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [guide-user] Satellite magnitudes
>
> Hi Bill,
>
> I see that Guide reports the brightness of Vanguard 1 as up to 4th magnitude. For such a small object I think that to be higly unrealistic. Either that or then I really should bump up my priority of observing the oldest still-orbiting man-made object.
>
> Kind regards,
> Jari
>
>
>
>
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>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>