I saw ISS!

From: C. Bassa via Seesat-l <seesat-l_at_satobs.org>
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2020 00:26:43 +0100
This subject used to be hot on SeeSat-L back in 1998, but this evening
I saw ISS where I did not expect to see it -- while ISS was in the
shadow of the Earth!

I only noticed that my camera had captured ISS while processing the
results. I was very puzzled why ISS was not much much brighter. Only
after checking the time of the observation (21:15UTC), did I realize
ISS was already in the Earth's shadow and no longer illuminated by the
Sun.

At 21:15UTC ISS was only about a minute after shadow entry, so some
stray sunlight may still have been illuminating ISS. Hence, I set up
the camera again for the next pass, that was predicted around
22:53UTC. Passing close to Procyon, ISS was seen again. Shadow entry
on that pass was at 22:48UTC, so ISS was deep into the shadow. I
re-positioned the camera towards Spica to catch it later in the pass.
While not obvious, ISS was detectable after correcting for the
expected motion and averaging the moved frames.

I've uploaded my images to this link: https://imgur.com/a/mDX2v6b.

This clearly highlights the sensitivity of my setup, but also that ISS
is big enough to reflect what must be lights from bright cities while
passing over Europe.

An unexpected first!
    Cees
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Received on Mon Mar 23 2020 - 18:27:31 UTC

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