From: Alan Friedman <alan@greatarrow.com>

Date: December 10, 2011 7:22:16 AM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] ISS Lunar Transit over Toronto ..... SUCCESS!


+1. Great story and great conclusion. When you get some rest, I think you can sharpen that image a little. It's a beauty.


congratulations!

Alan




On Dec 10, 2011, at 9:08 AM, Stephen W. Ramsden wrote:


Beautiful image.  Great timing and lots of patience. 

 

From: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of matt carmine
Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2011 8:19 AM
To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Astro_IIDC] ISS Lunar Transit over Toronto ..... SUCCESS!

 

 

I think I've been chasing this phenomenon for the past four years and I've had two previous failures due probably to a comb! ination of being too green and last minute orbital changes of the ISS.

I'm sure you can appreciate it's a pretty rare event to occur in the city so that at least you're not driving hours to the centerline. But to have it occur on a clear night, on a weekend and during the full moon is almost too much to hope for. You must be within 3 km of either side of the predicted path in order to see the ISS against the Moon and a group of us (10) came from all over the city to a park on the shore of Lake Ontario about 6 km west of the downtown core at 3 AM this morning.

And it almost didn't happen, because there was 1.5 minute engine burn of the ISS earlier in the afternoon to boost its altitude in preparation for taking on new crew and Cal Sky updated the orbital elements about 10 minutes later so we were not certain if the prediction truly reflected the new ISS position.

Even though we all arrived nearly an hour early, it almost took an hour to get set up in th! e dark and freezing cold. I had about 2 minutes to spare setting up a C8 with a DSLR at prime focus with an 80mm refractor on top and the PGR Scorpion. Both were showing about the same field of view but I was hoping to capture some high resolution high focal length images with the C8, the PGR Scorpion was insurance.

The ISS was in the Earth's shadow so nearly impossible to see ahead of time. I started recording the Scorpion a minute ahead of the predicted transit. I fired off a dozen frames from the DSLR and it died as I feared ... too cold for the batteries and no time to change in some warmer ones. There was a huge simultaneous roar from the group as the ISS carved right through the middle of the Moon in half a second and some 30 seconds ahead of schedule. We had done it!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4852049/ISSLunarTransitB.tif

Jim