Hi All, As far as I'm aware, the first successful, deliberate attempt to observe a satellite transit of the moon was on October 5, 1997 (UT) by three members of the Sacramento Valley Astronomical Society. The transiting satellite was Mir. One of these observers was Jim Varney, a SkyMap user and Seesat member at the time. (Jim: are you still out there?) He posted the following account of the transit to sci.astro.amateur, and I forwarded it to Seesat-L on July 22, 1998. For newcomers, I've copied the post to the end of this message. Cheers, Rob > -----Original Message----- > From: Matson, Robert > Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 1998 4:02 PM > To: 'terrypun@fast.net'; Nancy_D'Antuono@Brown.EDU > Cc: SeeSat-L@cds.plasma.mpe-garching.mpg.de > Subject: Lunar transit > > Hi All, > > Terry Pundiak asked if anyone has ever seen a satellite pass in front of > the moon -- > confirmed with software. The answer is a definite yes. In fact, the > transit was > predicted in advance (using SkyMap) and then observed. Seesat member Jim > Varney posted an account of the observation to sci.astro.amateur: > > > Tonight three observers from the Sacramento Valley Astronomical Society > > -- Chris Hulbe, David Larzelere and Jim Varney -- went to a rural area > of > > Sacramento County, California (121.1 W, 38.6 N) to attempt to observe > Mir > > transit the 3 day old moon. We were well armed for the event -- a C-8, > > 20x80's, 10x50's, 6x50's, a camcorder and two 35mm cameras. > > > > The predicted passage was Oct. 5, 1997 at 03:01:50 UT, with Skymap > > predicting a track from cusp to cusp right across the earthshine. The > > moon was only 6.3 degrees above the western horizon. The audio track > > from the camcorder gives a feel for what it was like: > > > > > > "I have Mir. About 7 o'clock, a degree and a half." > > "Is it closing in?" > > "Closing in! One degree, 7 o'clock!" > > "Almost ingress...!" > > "Ingress now!" > > "Wow..." > > "On the moon, on the moon!" > > "And... Egress!" > > "That was GREAT! Oh man!" "Awesome!" > > > > It took Mir 5.1 seconds to cross the lunar disk and was about 3rd or 4th > > magnitude. Mir was dim because it was low in the sky and at long range. > > > > One of the things we remarked about was how accurate Skymap was. Skymap > > just absolutely *nailed* the track right across the lunar disk. Skymap > > called a cusp-to-cusp transit and that is just what we saw. Hats off to > > Rob Matson, author of Skymap -- outstanding job with Skymap! > ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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
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