Heads up Canberra (ISS Pass Thursday night)

[bloodhound31]

Be ready on Thursday night around 7:30pm for a high and bright pass!

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

Mate, if you do get a chance, DO see it! It is quite a spectacle, and if you can round up some friends to see it too, even better. My first sighting of it was at a Star Party held at a school - EVERYONE was thrilled!

[bloodhound31]

Originally Posted by mental4astro

Mate, if you do get a chance, DO see it! It is quite a spectacle, and if you can round up some friends to see it too, even better. My first sighting of it was at a Star Party held at a school - EVERYONE was thrilled!

I remember ringing a mate last year to tell him it was in the sky. He was down the Hume highway from Canberra fuelling up at a servo at the time. He asked the attendant if she had ever seen it and she said no. He said, "My mate just rang and says it's in the sky in a minute." The whole servo emptied (including the attendant) and all the people in their cars all stopped for a look and were amazed.

Yes, it is quite the spectacle and intrigue to know that bright, fast-moving star in the sky has people aboard for months on end.

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

It's not as much fun as when you could catch the ISS and a shuttle, but still exciting. Sydney gets ISS passes:
Tue 19:35-19:37 starting SE and finishing about overhead mag -0.9.
Wed 18:48 close to the southern side of the LMC mag -0.7.
Thu 19:33-19:37 coming from the NNE and finishing SSE mag -2.8
Fri 18:45-18:51 staring N and finishing S mag -2.7
Sat -19:38 starting WNW finishing W mag -0.8
Sun 18:48-18:52 starting W finishing SW mag -2.2

Also Wed at 04:58 the HST passes through M44.

All those finish times are when the ISS passes into the Earth's shadow.

[malclocke (Malc)]

Funilly enough I'd just finished packing the scope up after getting some shots of the moon here in Christchurch and was having a quick scour of the sky and up popped the ISS. A pretty good pass too, 74 degrees.

[Kunama]

Just saw the ISS go directly over Jindabyne, brightest I have ever seen it.
(by coincidence, I had just sat down after dinner and turned on the laptop, switched to the ISS Live page and then ran outside with my binos.)

Quite amazing how much the Earth's atmosphere affects the colour, just before disappearing it turned almost red.
Current speed 17,132 MPH that's hiking !!!! Thanks Barry!

http://www.isstracker.com

[sil (Steve)]

Thanks for the heads up bloodhound31! I'd never seen it before and wasn't prepared for just how fast or how bright it was. Even with the moon trying to dominate the sky it was fantastic.

I used the charts to see where it would be, worked out the framing for a photograph and got the camera all set up for it. When I started setting up it was lightly raining (in a cloudless sky, 10min later the clouds showed up), but the sky was fine and clear for the event and I caught it in three shots (13sec exposures so it probably too maybe 20-25sec to cross the field of view of a 50mm lens on a cropped sensor DSLR). Crossed lengthways across the photos where I was hoping, will have to process them this weekend.

Thanks again, that was awesome! I was expecting a slower moving fainter dot.

[bloodhound31]

My pleasure guys! Glad you got a look!

Baz.

[Gem (Grant)]

Worth the look despite thin cloud and lots of moon. Not quite as bright as some other passes or MIR - but still brighter than any star that was out.