ISS Marathon tonight

Dale Ireland wrote:
Just a reminder, beginning yesterday the ISS is following the Earth's
terminator for a couple days and thus is in sunlight 24 hours a day and can
be seen on every pass all night long.

Caught her on three of four successive passes, missing the second only
because I went to look up and remind myself when it was due at that
very minute. %^) On parts of the first and third passes, I followed her
at 62x/52x resp. with my 8" Dob. Found her so glaringly bright much
of the time that it was difficult to discern much detail with any
certainty, but I could follow the main structure "overtaking" the
solar cell arrays due to the changing perspective the second time.

I also managed to catch Envisat earlier in the evening, and UARS just
a few ten seconds before the third ISS pass. Both are also large
enough to show structure at 62x during a favorable pass.

('twas quite a good night overall. While I failed to identify Pluto,
after having re-bagged it a few nights ago when it was closer to a
recognizable pattern of 13m-ish stars, I wound my way along the tea
spoon to NGC 6818 not quite utterly failing to see NGC 6822 along
the way - just as the merest of brightenings of an elongated region
of the sky background, at 50x and 70x - and later on, I got my first
ever very brief glimpse of the rille in Vallis Alpes, pushing the
Nagler Zoom to 333x and lucking out with a half second of steady
seeing. In between came time spent on Neptune, Uranus, and Mars
of course, and a whole lot of globulars, where the NZ's rival could
excel - the new 3.5mm Type 6 Nagler.)

Enjoy,
Gerhard

Hi Dale,

I caught it twice from near downtown Seattle. . . saw it around 10:00 p.m.
and again around 11:30 p.m. These times are very approximate as I was away
from a clock when I just happened by chance on both occasions to spot it.
On the first pass, it was moving fairly close to the eastern horizon (maybe
40 degrees above the horizon when at maximum altitude). The second pass
carried it just to the west of the meridian. Thanks for the reminder. You
had me watching for it.

Martin

"Dale Ireland" wrote in message
...
Hello

Just a reminder, beginning yesterday the ISS is following the Earth's
terminator for a couple days and thus is in sunlight 24 hours a day and
can
be seen on every pass all night long.

My tracking software Nova for Windows showed it going into eclipse last
night during its pass over Seattle about 11:10pm PDT but I saw it through
the entire pass, reddish and mag 2 or 3. It will be brighter tonight.

Dale,

Saw three of the five visible passes from near Schenectady, NY, USA. The
first and last were very high and seemed brighter than predicted. The 3rd
and 4th were clouded out.

Clear skies, Alan

Hi again
The orbital plane slowly drifts westward so as the early evening passes are
all in bright sunlight the late night/morning passesbecome more west of the
terminator until they are no longer in sunlight after Tuesday. So, .. the
early morning passes Tuesday (Monday night) will have the ISS just barely
illuminated by the Sun and very interesting.
Dale

From NYC saw the passes at 10:05 pm and 4:30 am both very bright
(listed at -8 mag). The 4:30 pass crossed in front of the Moon. Barbara


"Dale Ireland" wrote in message
...
Hello

Just a reminder, beginning yesterday the ISS is following the Earth's
terminator for a couple days and thus is in sunlight 24 hours a day and
can
be seen on every pass all night long.

My tracking software Nova for Windows showed it going into eclipse last
night during its pass over Seattle about 11:10pm PDT but I saw it through
the entire pass, reddish and mag 2 or 3. It will be brighter tonight.

Dale,

"Dale Ireland" wrote in message
...
Hello

Just a reminder, beginning yesterday the ISS is following the Earth's
terminator for a couple days and thus is in sunlight 24 hours a day and
can
be seen on every pass all night long.

My tracking software Nova for Windows showed it going into eclipse last
night during its pass over Seattle about 11:10pm PDT but I saw it through
the entire pass, reddish and mag 2 or 3. It will be brighter tonight.

What direction was it traveling? I was camping this weekend and happened to
look up and see a very bright, almost iridium bright, slowly cross the
sky...I want to say it went N to S. Very long, very bright, very consistent
the whole track. Nearly straight up. This was Saturday night.

BV.

What direction was it traveling? I was camping this weekend and =
happened to
look up and see a very bright, almost iridium bright, slowly cross the
sky...I want to say it went N to S. Very long, very bright, very =
consistent
the whole track. Nearly straight up. This was Saturday night.

What time did you see it? Evening passes would be generally from SW to =
NE and morning passes would be from NW to SE.=20

-Florian

"Florian" wrote in message
...
What direction was it traveling? I was camping this weekend and happened to
look up and see a very bright, almost iridium bright, slowly cross the
sky...I want to say it went N to S. Very long, very bright, very consistent
the whole track. Nearly straight up. This was Saturday night.

What time did you see it? Evening passes would be generally from SW to NE
and morning passes would be from NW to SE.

-Florian

Hmmm...There were SO MANY stars, I had trouble knowing what I was looking
at. I think, if I remember correctly, I had just found Lyra, and that was
sorta behind me, so The track would have been NW to SE, I think.

BV.

"Florian" wrote in message
...
Hmmm...There were SO MANY stars, I had trouble knowing what I was
looking
at. I think, if I remember correctly, I had just found Lyra, and that
was
sorta behind me, so The track would have been NW to SE, I think.


If you were looking in the evening then what you saw probably wasn't the
space station.

This was probably about 10:30-11pm. It may not have been the ISS. I so not
used to dark skies that this sat looked SO bright, even though it probably
wasn't.

BV.

I've seen the ISS tonight (22/07/03) at 22:15 (GMT+1) from Madrid
(Spain).
The course was SW-NE. It moved slowly compared to some other small
satellites. It was brighter than Jupiter in a dark and clear night,
and the dot was quite big, indeed it is not a point but a small dish.