Anthony wrote: >Has anyone studied the issue of solar vs lunar transits and which of the >two has a tendency (if any) to be more frequent? I did a quick run with nominal ISS orbit elements for the whole of 2006 and for locations at 50, 40 and 30 deg. latitude. I don't claim that this is in any way representative but I find that you get about twice as many (solar and lunar) transits at 50 deg than at 30 deg latitude. For each latitude you get indeed about as many solar as lunar transits if you allow for lunar transits in the daytime as well as for the nighttime and you also allow for non-illuminated ISS passes in front of the Moon. Nighttime passes in front of the Moon (with the ISS illuminated and non-illuminated) are about half of the daytime passes. I have not considered the phase of Moon (whether the ISS passes in front of the illuminated or the dark side). I guess many of the daytime lunar passes will be difficult to observe (has anyone done that?). So I guess in practise you are bound to see only half as many lunar passes than solar passes. Gerhard HOLTKAMP Darmstadt, Germany ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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