Re: mini OR and OI: ISS

Cool - I was able to do this very briefly Wednesday night at Montebello with
my 12" dob. When I looked, I saw two rectangles with a circular area in the
center. I was only about 50x so the apparent size was fairly small.

I remember seeing some fantastic views someone captured of the station with
a webcam. I believe the shuttle was docked at the station and there was a
surprising amount of detail in the picture.

Where's the best place to find out when the station will be passing
overhead?

Dan

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 1:14 PM, Bill Maney <bill.maney@No-Spam> wrote:

> Having more or less finished building my new 12.5" dob, I took it out last
> night for a tricky project: I was able to see and track the ISS. I'm sure
> I'm not the first to try this with a dob, but I'd recommend trying it.
> Pretty fun. The view was pretty wobbly since there was quite a bit of
> "shutter shake", but I could definitely see that it was quite irregular in
> shape. Also, there were clouds and branches in the way, since it was
> skimming low. (It's fun also that the big dob can see "through" thick
> branches).
> Tonight (8:40pm) it will pass nearly directly over my house, so I'm hoping
> the clouds stay away.
> One feature that I plan to add (tonight?) is a 2nd secondary bracket so
> that I can guide the scope from the opposite side while someone else looks
> through the main eyepiece. I was planning to do this eventually anyway for
> school star parties (they often bump stuff and the earth turns). That way I
> can park the scope in the path and let it stop wobbling (~1sec) while my
> friend can be looking, for clearer, shorter views. The plan is to swap
> places at Dobson's hole.
> Should make for an interesting 5 minutes.
> Bill
>
>
>
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