ISS Solar Transit captured today in Esk

[DaveO]

A group of us ventured out of Brisbane to the scenic country town of Esk, where we captured images of a solar transit by the ISS. You can see the images and videos on the Facebook page for SEQ Shadow Chasers (https://www.facebook.com/groups/588116771347231/).

AstroJunk's image beautifully sums it up

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=830506020392498&set=gm.596640397161535&type=3

[Dennis]

Excellent - well done! Phew, must have been a hot day as well.

Cheers

Dennis

[Bombardon]

Great work, David and what an exciting project and a fantastic result. Reminds me of a few daytime group meetings where we observed transits of both Mercury and Venus some years back. But the pressure of timing not too important compared to this fleeting moment. Regards

[DaveO]

Hi Eugene

Yes, events that last less than a second are new to me, and I now have even more respect for people doing asteroidal occultation timings! At least the sun is a big target, although surprisingly hard to find! :)

But it is a great "adventure" trying to do this as a group, and very social. I'd recommend the attempt to anybody.

Our next target is a lunar transit.

[PeterM]

Renato told me about these last night. Wow, well done Shadow Chasers!

[deanm]

Very cool - nice capture!

If that is CalSky you are using for ground-track predictions, can you offer some indication of the likely accuracy - i.e. was the timing & location anticipated accurate?

Cheers!

Dean

[AstroJunk]

Thanks all, I even got a gong from Charlie Bates Astronomy project!

I've subsequently loaded a program called SharpCap which does a much better job of image acquisition, so fingers crossed for a better result next time :)

Dean, we did use Cal sky (and IIS Transit Prediction for Android), both are as accurate as can be and certainly within a few seconds in time an a few tens of meters on the ground. Our aim is to be somewhere on the centre line for each event to ensure we capture the event - and even better if that location is somewhere nice with a café!

Join the FB group if you want regular updates - there is a great event over Brisbane city tomorrow at 7:48 am, but weather is iffy.