ISS and Lunar transit @ 18:12 tonight?

[Photosbykev]

According to my Starry Night and Heavens Above there will be a transit of the ISS across the lunar disk at 18:12 tonight during it's first pass. Probably worth a look

[digitalight]

Sadly its too far south to see it here. Looks like anyone at around 54' should see it. Would make a nice picture

[JamesF]

Might only cross the lunar disc for people in a fairly narrow band across the UK. I seem to recall talking to Steve about it crossing the solar disc and discovering that the observer has to be on a track only about fifteen miles wide to see it.

James

[Chappers88]

Not in Winnersh, Berkshire it won't.

[digitalight]

The second pass at around 7:48pm looks more promising for me here. Its going into the shadow of the early on though so hard to track. Will keep an eye on the moon during that time

[DirkSteele]

Just took most of my office out to watch it. Did not pass in front of the moon from our latitude, but at mag -3.3 at the peak it was very impressive for them to see.

[Steve Ward]

Was a lovely pass from here , there's a lot of high haziness and the only things visible were the ISS , Moon and Jupiter .

[Photosbykev]

Might only cross the lunar disc for people in a fairly narrow band across the UK. I seem to recall talking to Steve about it crossing the solar disc and discovering that the observer has to be on a track only about fifteen miles wide to see it.

James

The solar and lunar tracks are very narrow as you say. The pass tonight was a million miles away from a transit, so much for making sure Starry Night was upto date, I think I'll stay with the emails CalSky sends out for accurate predictions

[Steve Ward]

Shall be out in an hour for the next pass with the 75-300 at 150mm . .

[Steve Ward]

The ground track for Solar/Lunar transits is about 7km.

[DirkSteele]

Just about to show the office an Iridium flare as well. Passing only about 4km away from us so will exceed mag -6! 8 minutes and counting....

[stringbean]

The solar and lunar tracks are very narrow as you say. The pass tonight was a million miles away from a transit, so much for making sure Starry Night was upto date, I think I'll stay with the emails CalSky sends out for accurate predictions

I don't use Starry Night. How does it update the satellites? I use SkySafari Pro and we just have a button to click 'Update Minor Body Orbit Data' which updates asteroids, comets and satellites. I don't know where SkySafari get's its orbit data from.

When I owned a Windows PC, (now a Mac User), I much preferred using WXTrack and Orbitron when it came to tracking satellites because I could actually go to Spacetrack.org and copy and paste the two-line elements (TLE) in manually knowing I've got the latest orbit data for the required object I was tracking. I miss not having a Windows PC anymore because those two programs both worked flawlessly every time.

[JamesF]

I'm ignorant of Macs, mostly, but couldn't you run Windows in a virtual machine to get those applications?

James

[stringbean]

I'm ignorant of Macs, mostly, but couldn't you run Windows in a virtual machine to get those applications?

James

I think you misunderstand me. My post was enquiring about how Users of Starry Night get their orbit data for satellites like the ISS. I just happened to mention the two Windows PC programs I had in passing so-to-speak and how easy it was to manually copy and paste TLE's.

[JamesF]

Ah, right, I see.

James

[Photosbykev]

I think you misunderstand me. My post was enquiring about how Users of Starry Night get their orbit data for satellites like the ISS. I just happened to mention the two Windows PC programs I had in passing so-to-speak and how easy it was to manually copy and paste TLE's.

Starry Night can be set to update its database everytime you fire it up and the internet is available