Re: Mini OR: ISS

Still, it can be done. I tracked the ISS with my XT8 up at Monte Bello a
few years ago. No one was more shocked than I that I was able to do it.

Greg Claytor

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Rob Jaworski" <jaworskirob@No-Spam>
Sent: Sunday, August 29, 2010 9:56 AM
To: "TAC mailing list" <tac@No-Spam>
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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