I just observed a beautiful, 82 degree elevation, pass of the ISS, starting about 30 minutes after sunset- it was visible virtually horizon to horizon. Unfortunately, I observed it with my own eyes. Monday evening, there was also a nice 58 degree pass. In both cases (and not the first time I've seen this), my scope appeared to correctly move to where the ISS would rise. But it then tracked almost horizontally, and in fact began "tracking" downwards before I stopped it! In each case, I'd downloaded an OIG TLE that was only a few hours old, by the time of the pass. The scope's GOTO (e.g., when looking at planets) seems to work just fine, now that I've mastered the scope's somewhat finicky alignment procedure, so- given that I haven't even once come close to succeeding, in several attempts now- it appears that the satellite tracking firmware (I have Meade's latest version) either doesn't work at all, or "works" very unreliably. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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