Aug 28, 2004 ISS Lunar Transit from Maryland US

From: Ron (robischr@nticorporation.com)
Date: Thu Sep 02 2004 - 10:19:28 EDT

  • Next message: John Locker: "Re: Aug 28, 2004 ISS Lunar Transit from Maryland US"

    My buddy Matt Broscious and I bagged an ISS lunar transit in the wee hours
    of the morning last Saturday, August 28, from a location a bit northeast of
    Damascus, Maryland.  Our 80-frame movie of the event has been posted here
    for viewing:
    
    http://iss-transit.sourceforge.net/videos/IssLunarTransit-040828.wmv
    
    Please note that it's a 2.5MB file.
     
    
    Here are the specifics for this catch (Tom Fly transit alert at bottom of
    message):
     
    August 28, 2004
    02:18:06 to 02:18:08 EDT (duration about 2.7 seconds)
     
    Location: Northeast of Damascus, Maryland; corner of New Cut and Florence
    Roads
    Lat: 39d 19.268m
    Long: 77d 08.673m
     
    Equipment:
    4 1/2" Orion Starblast reflector
    Supercircuits PC23C video camera; output sent to and recorded on a digital
    video camera. 
     
    This was truly a collaborative effort!  Having been very busy recently, I
    didn't check Tom's transit alert email until late Friday afternoon and was
    shocked to find this opportunity just 10 hours away!  I quickly posted a
    note to a few local amateur astronomers, including the alert notice, to see
    if there was any other interest.  When Matt responded and did the
    preliminary leg work of plotting the path, we decided to set the alarms for
    1am and go for it! 
     
    Thanks to Matt's preparations, when he arrived at my house at 1:10am we
    quickly figured out to where along the path's centerline we'd drive.  He had
    his GPS and laptop rigged up to continuously plot our current location on
    his DeLorme mapping software.  THIS WAS SWEET!!!  We pick a road (New Cut)
    which was right on the predicted path and it turned out to be a great place
    from which to make the attempt.  We set up, went throught the obligatory
    last minute panic mode when we experienced technical difficulties, and then
    got everything in order just in time for the the transit.  We used my 4 1/2"
    Starblast with the Supercircuits camera inserted into the focuser.  The
    output was directed to Matt's digital video camera for digital recording.
     
    Our thanks to Tom for his continuing transit alerts and also for providing
    me a place to upload the large video file.
    
    -Ron Robisch 
    Monrovia MD
    
    
    
            name: Ron Robisch
        latitude: 39.3706 N
       longitude: 77.2358 W
       elevation: 570 ft
    alert radius: 40 mi
       time zone: -4.0
      last alert: 24 Aug 2004 | 14:57:19
    
    Minimum transit distances during the current reporting period:
      Sun     39.8 mi
      Moon    5.8
    * Mercury 62.1
    * Venus   41.2
      Mars    none within 100 miles
      Jupiter none
    * Saturn  65.2
    
    A - travel distance (miles) and direction
    B - date
    C - time
    D - elevation angle of the ISS
    E - azimuth angle of the ISS ( + is East from North; - is W from N)
    F - range (miles)
    G - latitude for observing the transit
    H - longitude
    I - how far (miles) can I be from the centerline?
    
    For other than solar transits:
    J - lunar transits: is space station sunlit?
        planetary encounters: 1=Mercury; 2=Venus; 4=Mars; 5=Jupiter; 6=Saturn
    K - sun elevation angle
    L - sun/moon or sun/planet separation angle
    
    A------- B----- C-----  D--- E----- F--- G------- H-------- I---- J K----
    L----
     42.2 SW 28 Aug  21801  17.6 -141.9  609  38.8873  -77.7151   3.0 n -39.3
    154.7
     35.6 SW 28 Aug  21802  17.5 -141.9  611  38.9545  -77.6273   3.1 n -39.2
    154.7
     29.1 SW 28 Aug  21803  17.4 -141.8  613  39.0219  -77.5391   3.1 n -39.2
    154.7
     22.6 SW 28 Aug  21804  17.3 -141.7  615  39.0894  -77.4505   3.1 n -39.1
    154.7
     16.2 SW 28 Aug  21805  17.2 -141.7  617  39.1571  -77.3614   3.1 n -39.0
    154.7
     10.3 S  28 Aug  21806  17.1 -141.6  620  39.2250  -77.2719   3.1 n -38.9
    154.7
      6.1 SE 28 Aug  21807  17.0 -141.6  622  39.2930  -77.1820   3.1 n -38.8
    154.7
      5.8 SE            07.26                 39.3106  -77.1587   3.1
      7.7 E  28 Aug  21808  16.9 -141.5  624  39.3612  -77.0917   3.1 n -38.7
    154.7
     13.2 E  28 Aug  21809  16.8 -141.4  627  39.4292  -77.0016   3.1 n -38.6
    154.7
     19.5 NE 28 Aug  21810  16.7 -141.4  629  39.4977  -76.9103   3.2 n -38.5
    154.7
     26.1 NE 28 Aug  21811  16.6 -141.3  631  39.5665  -76.8186   3.2 n -38.4
    154.7
     32.8 NE 28 Aug  21812  16.5 -141.2  634  39.6355  -76.7264   3.2 n -38.3
    154.7
     39.6 NE 28 Aug  21813  16.4 -141.2  636  39.7046  -76.6337   3.2 n -38.3
    154.7
    
    
    
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive:  
    http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Sep 02 2004 - 10:23:41 EDT