I am posting this message to two groups. It is lengthy but I think that someone in both groups may get something out of it. The subject I discuss here is where to be to see a transit of the moon by the International Space Station tonight. I also explain how I made the determination. First, using Heavens-Above at http://www.heavens-above.com I checked to see where tonight's ground path of the ISS would be. [That gave me an idea as to where to begin.] Then also using Heavens-Above I determined (with much trial and error) that the path that the ISS will take across the US tonight is about 300 miles SW of another path, one along which observers will be able to see the station transit the moon. After finding 4 locations I plugged their coordinates into MapBlast.com and printed off 4 maps of the US showing the sites as a + sign on each one. I held one of the maps against a sunlit window, and lined up map 2 then 3 then 4 under map 1. I marked the location of the + signs on maps 2 - 4 on map one. In so doing I discovered that all 4 + signs were aligned very nicely. I presume that from now on I may make just two determinations separated by quite a ways and draw a line between them. If anybody knows that will not work, please let me know. :~) Below I describe the locations that I determined will see a lunar transit. If you think you are near the line between the places that I describe, Go to Heavens-Above at http://www.heavens-above.com and see how close the transit will be for you (and when). The places that I discovered will see this event are (1) Straight East of Cheyenne, Wyoming 15 miles on HY 30: exact coordinates = 41.1400N, 104.6000W (2) Straight East of Dodge City Kansas 37 miles on HWY 183, exact coordinates = 37.7530°N, 99.3500° W (3) 33 miles ESE of McAlester, Oklahoma near the junction of HWYs 1, 2 and 43, exact coordinates = 34.7460N, 95.2500W (4) North Central Louisiana, NNW of Ruston about 22 miles. To be exact about 2 miles NNE of the junction of HWY 2 and 518 exact coordinates = 32.8150N, 92.8560W. This will be an especially good time to see the ISS because the shuttle should be relatively close to it. At this time, for my location, the ISS is supposed to rise at 9:17:14 PM local time while the shuttle is supposed to come up 1 minute and 5 seconds later. If anybody knows of a program that charts ground tracks on a map that shows state lines or better yet, cities, please let me know! Thanks. Clear skies, Iowa Tom USA ..... ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Apr 17 2002 - 19:36:14 EDT