Hi Bruno, > Even satellites in low earth orbit, which would be at a distance of 1000 > to 2000 km from the observer, cannot be seen because the image would > be wiped out by atmospheric turbulence. Perhaps at 2000 km range, but at 1000 km a 10-meter object subtends 2 arcseconds. This is within the realm of possibility. And with a larger satellite like Mir, ISS or the Shuttle (where the range can also be quite a bit less than 1000 km), observation should be no problem at all. > In this respect, it is interesting to see photographs taken of Mercury > transits across the Sun. Such images have been published in SKY > & TELESCOPE on several occasions. I had no trouble seeing the most recent Mercury solar transit through 8 x 56 binoculars. Granted, Mercury subtended 10 arcseconds, but with a modest telescope you could certainly get down to a couple arcseconds. > Perhaps, and I stress *perhaps*, it is possible to see such transits across > the moon. To my knowledge, no *verifiable* observation has ever been made. A sunlit transit of Mir across the lunar disk has been successfully observed. I can dig up the rather excited report if you like. Don't know if anyone has observed a silouette pass of Mir across the moon, however -- perhaps that's what you're referring to. Cheers, Rob ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jan 26 2001 - 13:18:38 PST