Re: Mini OR: ISS

If you align one of your mount's axis with the flight path coordinates,
especially with an Alt/AZ mounting by pre-aligning the AZ and then using the
Alt for the tracking if the flight path, I have found that very useful to
track a fast moving object. 2nd if a 2nd person can keep centered the scope
on the ISS through the finder, then you have a much better shot at getting a
high powered view of it. Third if you own a zoom eyepiece this can help you
get your high power view once you're on it.

-----Original Message-----
From: tac-bounces@No-Spam [mailto:tac-bounces@No-Spam] On Behalf
Of Rob Jaworski
Sent: Sunday, August 29, 2010 9:56 AM
To: TAC mailing list
Subject: Re: [TAC] Mini OR: ISS

I was going to suggest, practicing on airplanes first. But yeah, trying to
track by hand isn't really that good of an option.

What about the idea of taking a mental picture? Get ahead of the fast
moving
object and let it come nicely in the center of your FOV, then when it's
centered, quickly close your eyes and concentrate on that image that's
temporarily burned into your short term optical memory. I've tried this
with,
say, license plates, and am able to read them back from that mental image a
whole lot easier than trying to memorize it quickly.

> I haven't heard of heaves-above. What are they heaving?
Maybe I was thinking that's how the HEAVE the station up into orbit, give it
a
big push? :-)

This site is good too:
http://www.heavens-above.com/

BTW, folks, *excellent* talk last night at Houge, as expected. Dr Seth
Shostak
is one lively speaker, quick on his verbal toes, a lot of fun.

-Rob

----- Original Message ----
From: Bill Maney <bill.maney@No-Spam>
To: TAC mailing list <tac@No-Spam>
Sent: Fri, August 27, 2010 2:20:05 PM
Subject: Re: [TAC] Mini OR: ISS

Rob,
Despite my wide field, I'd say it takes less than 2 seconds to cross the
field at the zenith. I did a mixture. Sometimes I'd set my finder
crosshairs well ahead of the trajectory and then watch through the
scope. And other times, once I had it, I just tracked along looking
only through the eyepiece. This seems to work better for me, even
though the scope is not as stable, I think because I have time to parse
what I see. I had a nice stretch of 10 seconds or something before I
hit the zenith stop where it was centered and clear. It helps that it
was going through the zenith so it was almost all alt and not much az.
A little nudge now and then was the worst way because the scope settling
time is around 1 sec. Maybe a bigger nudge in the right direction would
work better, but the direction is always slowly changing and I missed it
when I tried this. For my son and my neighbor, I could look through the
finder and track while they looked through the eyepiece. Probably the
best way of all.
I practiced on planes before the event. They go over my house to SFO so
at first, on the horizon they are easy to track and then get faster and
faster (angularly speaking). Good fun.
For the 9:30 event, I wished I'd had a moon filter. It's too bright.
For the 8:30 pass, it seemed ok since the sky wasn't so dark.
I haven't heard of heaves-above. What are they heaving? :)
Bill

Rob Jaworski wrote:
> I went to heaves-above last night and found that the ISS had just passed
nearly
>
> overhead a few minutes before. And it was estimated to be a -3.5 mag.
Darn!
>
> Glad you were able to see it, Bill. I'm curious. You did have a nice
wide
>FOV,
>
> but did you track it by hand, giving the scope a little nudge every now
and
> again?
>
> -Rob
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Bill Maney <bill.maney@No-Spam>
> To: TAC mailing list <tac@No-Spam>
> Sent: Fri, August 27, 2010 11:29:37 AM
> Subject: [TAC] Mini OR: ISS
>
> My 9 year old son and I saw the ISS with my 12.5" dob, f/5, 35mm 72deg
> eyepiece from the Redwood City area last night (thurs) at around 8:30.
> It was a perfect path straight overhead. We could easily see the solar
> panels on either side of a small blob, even when it went overhead.
> I had also looked the previous night (wed) at 9:30 but I think the
> orientation was different. I saw something out to the side, smaller
> than I expected, but as it moved across the sky the perspective changed
> and it looked like a blob as it disappeared. This pass was to the
> west of me. An attempt to see it at around 8:05 was unsuccessful, so I
> was redeemed last night.
>
> It seemed odd to me that last night the panels were apparently facing
> down toward the earth instead of west toward the sun. I guess an hour
> after sunset, there's already some angle. It also seemed odd that I
> could see more on an earlier pass, but maybe that makes sense too. I
> guess if you want to see the panels wider, look when the path is east of
> you, later in the evening. Or catch it against the disk of the sun!
> There's another pass tonight at 8:26, but it's a bit too low (24 deg
> max). Should be better farther north though.
> Bill
>

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