ISS Transit tomorrow morning. sun, 27th

[Mac]

Following on from Tony Buicks short talk on thursday, there are a few transits of the ISS tomorrow morning.

The first starts at 03:23 Transits at 03:28 and sets at 03:33
2nd is at 04:57, Transits at 05:20 and sets at 05:07 Max mag 2.3  
3rd. Starts 06:32, Transits at 06:37 sets 06:42 Max mag -1.2
4th Starts 08:07, Transits at 08:12 sets 08:17. Max mag 0.2.

the 2nd & 3rd are nearly W to E
4th is roughly WNW to SE.

Data from Starry night.

Have fun
Mac.

[Rick]

Do they give any information about visibility? My prediction program suggests that the first will be in total darkness and the second mostly in darkness. The third should be well illuminated. The fourth will be in daylight.

[Rick]

If anyone does and ISS observing in the next few days I'd be interested to know how accurate these predictions actually are:

Code Select Expand

Satellite predictions with favourable viewing geometry (>25) for:

Ground Station    : High Elms, Farnborough, Kent, England   ---   JO01AI
Time Zone         : UTC (+0.00 h)
                          in eclipse *  in daylight o
                                     ^              ^
Date       Rising at    Peak elevation      Setting    Height Satellite
Y M D  Time      Az.  Time      Az. El  Time      Az. (peak) Name
======  ========= ===  ========= === ==  ========= === ====== =========

061127  04:58:08* 255  05:02:53* 180 79  05:07:52   80        ISS
061127  06:33:01* 277  06:37:53  349 87  06:42:52   98        ISS
061127  08:08:00o 283  08:12:45o 203 34  08:17:30o 129        ISS
061128  03:43:35* 238  03:48:19* 158 45  03:53:11   77        ISS
061128  05:18:20* 267  05:23:12* 353 82  05:28:11   87        ISS
061128  06:53:20* 282  06:58:12  189 66  07:03:03o 111        ISS
061129  04:03:39* 253  04:08:31* 159 75  04:13:23   80        ISS
061129  05:38:39* 276  05:43:31   51 84  05:48:23   96        ISS
061129  07:13:31* 283  07:18:16o 206 37  07:23:08o 127        ISS
061130  02:49:06* 235  02:53:50* 155 41  02:58:42*  77        ISS
061130  04:23:51* 265  04:28:43*  22 83  04:33:35   86        ISS
061130  05:58:51* 281  06:03:35  202 70  06:08:34  109        ISS
061201  03:09:03* 251  03:13:55* 155 71  03:18:47*  79        ISS
061201  04:44:03* 275  04:48:47* 346 83  04:53:46   95        ISS
061201  06:18:55* 283  06:23:40  203 41  06:28:31  125        ISS
I'd guess the easiest to time is probably "Peak Elevation"...

[Mac]

well the good old british weather was up to its normal tricks,

the 03:23 was cloudy as was the 04:57,  

dont know about the other two as i fell asleep.

[Rick]

It was absolutely tipping it down when I woke up just too late for the 06:37...

[Sallyvardon]

When I first got my telescope and used it a bit more than I do at the moment I regulary saw the ISS and the timings given on Heavens Above are correct more or less to the second.
I'd stand outside about 2 minutes to it being visible and then track it with binoculars till it disappeared which was a lot quicker than you imagine!

[Mac]

fingers crossed, i'm going to have another go tonight, as there are anothe few passes predicted.

I just hope i'm working outside tonight.

[Rick]

The 06:58 one will be quite a challenge, and the 05:23 one will be quite short, if the prediction program I'm using is anywhere near correct. The ones at 05:43 on Wednesday and 06:03 on Thursday look promising though.

[Mac]

hurah  
Weather 0 : Humans 1.

Unfortunately i was working undergound tonight so didn't manage to see the earlier passes, however I managed to bag the 05:39.
Strangely enough, the UARS sattelite passed overhead about 2 mins before the ISS this was lsited as -.71

where the ISS is listed as -1.34.

Below is a sized photo, No processing has been done except to make it smaller.



I do have the other two either side of this photo if required.

The length of the trail is 30secs and the direction of travel is from right to left.

I'll make some measurements later and see if the predictions are accurate.

If you want a full sized unprocessed photo heres the link. beware its
1.5meg!
http://www.macrhon.demon.co.uk/photos/images/Full_DSC_9643.jpg

[Anonymous]

Nice one Mac - Great picture... Like the plough as well - Let's have some more - John

[Fay]

Mac,

That is a really great picture! Especially with Ursa Major as well.

Fay

[Anonymous]

Nice image Mac,
looks like this is the next conquest for a few people. I've tried this before just hand held with my digital camera and just had a light trail all over the place, which reminds me, I must invest with a tripod and remote.

keep up the images Mac

Tony G

[Rick]

I guess webcam imaging could allow quite accurate timing of flares and eclipses?

[Mac]

Having processed the picture a little further and added some info, here are the results.

Ephemeris data for ISS from starry night.

Local Time                     Az        Alt        RA                        Dec                  Kind           Mag      Distance      Illumination      

29/11/2006 05:43:41      91°      75°      11h 39m 04.6s      49° 20' 45"      Satellite      -0.96      356 km      54%      
29/11/2006 05:43:43      92°      73°      11h 51m 55.4s      48° 25' 46"      Satellite      -0.90      360 km      52%      
29/11/2006 05:43:45      92°      71°      12h 04m 02.9s      47° 26' 54"      Satellite      -0.83      364 km      50%      
29/11/2006 05:43:47      93°      69°      12h 15m 27.2s      46° 24' 54"      Satellite      -0.76      368 km      48%      
29/11/2006 05:43:49      93°      67°      12h 26m 09.0s      45° 20' 31"      Satellite      -0.69      374 km      46%      
29/11/2006 05:43:51      93°      65°      12h 36m 10.0s      44° 14' 26"      Satellite      -0.61      379 km      44%      
29/11/2006 05:43:53      94°      63°      12h 45m 31.8s      43° 07' 15"      Satellite      -0.54      385 km      42%      
29/11/2006 05:43:55      94°      61°      12h 54m 16.8s      41° 59' 30"      Satellite      -0.46      392 km      41%      
29/11/2006 05:43:57      94°      59°      13h 02m 27.0s      40° 51' 38"      Satellite      -0.37      398 km      39%      
29/11/2006 05:43:59      94°      57°      13h 10m 05.0s      39° 44' 05"      Satellite      -0.29      406 km      38%      
29/11/2006 05:44:01      94°      55°      13h 17m 13.0s      38° 37' 09"      Satellite      -0.21      413 km      36%      
29/11/2006 05:44:03      94°      54°      13h 23m 53.1s      37° 31' 07"      Satellite      -0.12      421 km      35%      
29/11/2006 05:44:05      94°      52°      13h 30m 07.6s      36° 26' 12"      Satellite      -0.04      430 km      33%      
29/11/2006 05:44:07      95°      50°      13h 35m 58.3s      35° 22' 35"      Satellite       0.04      438 km      32%      
29/11/2006 05:44:09      95°      49°      13h 41m 27.3s      34° 20' 22"      Satellite       0.13      447 km      31%      
29/11/2006 05:44:11      95°      48°      13h 46m 36.1s      33° 19' 42"      Satellite       0.21      456 km      30%      
29/11/2006 05:44:13      95°      46°      13h 51m 26.4s      32° 20' 36"      Satellite       0.30      466 km      28%      
29/11/2006 05:44:15      95°      45°      13h 55m 59.6s      31° 23' 08"      Satellite       0.39      476 km      27%      
29/11/2006 05:44:17      95°      44°      14h 00m 17.2s      30° 27' 20"      Satellite       0.47      486 km      26%      
29/11/2006 05:44:19      95°      42°      14h 04m 20.2s      29° 33' 12"      Satellite       0.56      496 km      25%      
29/11/2006 05:44:21      95°      41°      14h 08m 09.8s      28° 40' 42"      Satellite       0.64      506 km      25%    

Starry night screen shot showing position at the two times.



Compared to mine.

.

It looks like the Ephemeris are pretty spot on,
You can even see the trail fading.

Haven quite worked out how to measure the trail and convert to a magnitude, but using photoshop and taking a mean of the trail the brighter end is 44.95 and the darker end is 36.44.

[Whitters]

Nice one Mac