Kevin, Once I was tracking the ISS with my 8" lx200 when the sat transited the moon. I remember that it was evening and the moon was high. I had a low power set up and as the ISS crossed the moon, I can't honestly say I saw the sat during the sun lit portion or the earth shine portion of the transit. Sat could have passed behind the moon, as best I could tell. It was just too fast for me to see. Robin Kevin Fetter wrote: > > Rob Wrote > > The next challenge is for someone to observe a silhouette > transit of ISS across a full (or nearly full) moon. I don't > believe anyone has done this yet. At least in this case > there's no danger of retinal damage. > > It's been done! > > Using a prediction by me, Vance Petriew of the regina centre of the royal > astronomical society of canada ( RASC ) observed the iss going across the > full moon using his 20 ince telescope. He observed it on Mar 29 around > 3:53:43 UTC plus or minus a few seconds :) > > Here is what he wrote , sorry for the long post. > > It was pretty cool!!! Man it moves quick! The "blink and you'll miss it" > statement definitely holds true. > > I started setting up the 20" Obsession in front of my garage about 20 > minutes ahead of time. There were some small cumulus clouds floating across > the sky but nothing too serious. As I was assembling the scope, there must > have been a dozen vehicles pass by. I was beginning to think that that 60 > lb piece of glass was some kind of vehicle magnet. I guess everyone picked > 9:40 PM to be heading somewhere because our street is never that busy. > > By 9:45 PM I had the light shroud on and did a quick collimation. I headed > back to the garage and grabbed the Telrad and noticed that a car had come to > a stop just past the telescope. I proceeded over to the telescope as they > were backing up. I looked at my watch. 9:48 PM. I thought to myself > "Maybe they're just wondering what this big thing was on the street and will > move on". As I fumbled to put the Telrad on the scope, I heard a voice from > the car ask "Excuse me?". > > Thoughts poured through my head. "Should I help these people and risk > missing the ISS? Every second is crucial." I decided to walk over to the > car. They wanted to know how to find a particular street. Since I can > never remember street names on the best of days, I told them to turn right > and then left and keep looking. They were happy with that answer and I was > happy since there was still time left on the clock. > > I walked back to the scope, put on the Telrad and inserted the eyepiece. > Not knowing what to expect, I chose my 31 mm Nagler at 80x so I could see > the whole moon. I checked my watch. 9:51 PM. I swung to the scope over to > the moon only to find it covered in a thick haze. It looked like it could > clear out so I decided to watch the moon through the haze anyway. As I had > my eye glued to the eyepiece, I kept getting this urge to check my watch to > see how much time was left. I resisted the temptation and stared at the > moon trying not to blink. Now, for anyone that's ever looked at the full > moon through a full aperture 20" scope, staring at the moon is like looking > down the end of a Mag-Lite! Those photons almost hurt! This was one time I > was happy to have a little haze. Luckily, I could see the craters start to > appear as the haze appeared to thin. > > After what seemed like a very long time, THERE IT WAS! It was much smaller > than I was expecting at 80x. A small, detailed speck in the eyepiece. The > speck looked like a 'T' with a lobe on the bottom of it. The top of the 'T' > had some small light gaps in it which reminded me of a solar panel mounted > to a truss. Because it was moving so quickly, my eye was not able to pick > up the movement of it until it crossed the meridian. So realistically, you > only get about 1/2 second to pick up details. From my vantage point, the > ISS crossed about 1/3 of the way between the moon's equator and the north > pole. Very cool! > > So what would I do differently? I'd choose as much magnification as I could > (160x for me) while still maintaining a 30' field of view. Since the moon > was still low in the sky, the ISS would have been much smaller than if it > were directly overhead. In my case, I think it would have been hard to see > at anything less than 50x. Next time, I'd also check my watch with my good > eye rather than the blind one :o) > > Thanks again, Kevin! > > Vance Petriew > Regina Centre > > His the one who discovered comet petriew last year. > > Kevin > > _________________________________________________________________ > MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: > http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > 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
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