> Hi everyone > I got an image of the ISS on Sunday morning, which showed it to be flying > in -XPOP mode. This was not quite what I expected since the sun angle was > low enough for it to be in XVV. The current rules I have are XVV if sun > angle (beta) is less than 37 degrees. ISS passed this value (decreasing) on > January 2nd. Does anyone know if the rules have been altered or whether they > are just a bit late in implementing the change. > > Thanks > Phil I received an email today from Don Pettit, the curent Science Officer on ISS, which mentioned the attitude the station is in. Perhaps this clip from that email will explain the ISS attitude you saw. ------------------------------ Robert: I have been experimenting with wide field astrophotography out the Lab window. I have not yet completed my barn door so I have no tracking capability yet. However, station is currently in a solar inertial attitude with torque equilibrium hold which means it can wobble around a few degrees as it orbits the earth so as to minimize spent momentum from our control moment gyros. This means the station makes for a pretty stable platform with camera mounted solid. It also means that for the night pass the lab window points away from earth which give fantastic views of a black dark star field. I have film cameras and have talked to you about storing my Fuji 800 in the water bags. Before I expend my rolls of film, I wanted to ---------------------------------- BTW, the message is related to "amateur" astrophotography from the ISS. Don is an amateur astronomer and had purchased my book "Wide-Field Astrophotography" several years ago. He and I have been in contact since then and have discussed various ways he can conduct celestial photography from the station with the Nikon cameras they have aboard. He sent me some shots he took with the Nikon digital that were pretty good, but I have to keep them to myself until they are "officially" released on the NASA web site. Robert Reeves reeves10@swbell.net 520 Rittiman Rd. www.robertreeves.com San Antonio, Texas 78209 210-828-9036 USA 29.484 98.440 200 meters ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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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