I have set up a program to automatically compute the ISS transits for different places and upload the results once a day – at around 11:00 am each day. See Zoom-Zoom for the impetus for this as well as references.
NOTE: If the maps come up “empty” it usually means there are no passes in the next 11 days that meet the criteria (within the stated radius and at least 20 degrees or higher in the sky). Also, if the predictions are really old, it means something is BROKEN. You can leave a comment to let me know as I don’t monitor this very actively.
Please note that intermittently, the application fails to run and update the charts. Sorry ’bout that.
Predictions for the NORTH BAY
(70 Mile radius from San Leandro and at least 40 degrees altitude)
You can download the predictions for the NORTH BAY here.
The SOUTH Bay
(60 mile radius from Morgan Hill and at least 27 degrees altitude)
Yosemite Valley, California
(30 mile radius from Yosemite Valley >27 deg.)
The Los Angeles Area
(70km radius from Beverly Hills >27 deg.)
Research Triangle Park, NC
Predictions for Las Vegas
(40 Mile radius from Downtown >27 deg.)
You can download the predictions for Las Vegas here.
Very cool! Thanks for setting this up. This will certainly save some planning time.
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Rick Whitacre snagged this on April 19th. The ISS was quite far away.
Nailed it! I love that there were so many sunspots present as well.
I’ve picked up quite a few tips along the way. In no particular order here they are:
Well, it seems you CAN shoot the ISS through some clouds.
Note that this shot used a Baader Astrosolar PHOTOGRAPHIC filter which is more naturally white but NOT suitable for visual observing. The texture of the clouds is pretty obvious – but the sunspots are also nonetheless visible. Because the clouds were rolling by, I elected to shoot the images in AV mode to handle the abrupt changes in brightness. The shot with the ISS was taken at 1/2000s of a second at ISO 100. The equipment consisted of: a 600mm Orion ED80 refractor telescope, a Canon 1.4x Tele-extender, a Canon 50D all on an Orion Astroview equatorial mount (though the mount was only used as a glorified tripod).
The effective focal length of the shot is therefore 1344mm and the effective f/stop is 16.8.
Very cool! I wish I hadn’t gotten caught up in all these “seeing” talk and went out and tried it. I’m the last one without a solar transit. Nicely done – their solar panels were looking right back at you!
Yeah, and I’m sheepishly wondering if I shouldn’t have driven to “location alpha” to get the near simultaneous crossing of TWO spacecraft!