Nice report, Rodger. --- On Wed, 7/22/09, Rodger C. Fry <rcfry@comcast.net> wrote: From: Rodger C. Fry <rcfry@comcast.net> Subject: [Utah-astronomy] ISS/Shuttle Pass Observation To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Wednesday, July 22, 2009, 11:53 PM Tonight, I set my LX-200 10" Meade up in the park behind my house in Murray, UT. I entered the orbital elements into the telescope for the ISS pass, set the telescope up and then observed a few things before the ISS came into view. I observed Epsilon Lyrae and found the viewing to be moderately stable being able to split the double pairs with a 24mm eyepiece. At 10:20 PM, I entered the command for the telescope to track the ISS and it responded by going to a point about 10 deg above the NW horizon. Right on time, the ISS came into view, I centered it in the finder and hit enter to start tracking. When the ISS was fairly low in the sky the telescope tracked the ISS/Shuttle fairly well. I was using a 34mm super wide-angle eyepiece to give me the widest field of view. I could clearly make out the solar panels on each end of the ISS and they were a brillient orange color. The Shuttle reflected a more white light. As the ISS/Shuttle approached near the zenith, tracking was difficult and I couldn't keep the object in the FOV for more than about 10% of the time. Before I put the telescope away, I took a look at Jupiter. It was fairly low (in the soup) but I could easily make out the banding and four moons but no impact spot. I put things away by 11:30 PM. It was worth the effort. Thank You, Rodger C. Fry Consulting Geologist _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com