On August 31 I identified a possible lunar transit in the Houston area and with the help of Kevin Fetter who was kind enough to generate several ground tracks, I used a GPS receiver to position myself close to the projected center on September 3 at 10h18mUT. The path crossed part of downtown Houston and I found myself at the Veterans Administration Hospital building 20 minutes before the event. Lynn and I found a parking lot and set up my Celestron 8 with Watec video camera trained on the dark side of the crescent moon. At 10h16m a police unit, who noticed the equipment set up under a lighted area, stopped me and proceeded to ask for identification and whether we had permission to use a telescope on federal property. I was able to convince her that we were there under legitimate SEESAT purposes and that if she waited just a moment she would see ISS transit the moon. Within 30 seconds we picked up the ISS making its way toward the ESE horizon. The moon, at an elevation of 27 degrees was in crescent phase and, with thunderstorms below it generating clouds, we easily saw the 2nd magnitude object speed across the dark side, cross the terminator and the sunlit side. [After further discussions we were not considered a risk to VA property and were let go.] I have posted a 2 second .AVI file of the brief transit to my web site. If any reader knows how I can get a more defined image that might show structure, I would appreciate a reply. The web address for the 0.5MB file that can be viewed online is: http://eclipsetours.com/sat/index, then click on the link SATELLITE CROSSES THE MOON. The account and link is at the bottom of the page. Not being web-smart, we loaded it in .AVI form and I am able to play it using Windows Media Player. The software I use doesn't allow MPEG. I also have a separate camcorder view which shows the whole moon and the ISS crossing it but will perhaps post stills from that later. Paul Paul D. Maley Houston, Texas 77058 USA email: paul.d.maley1@jsc.nasa.gov Tel. 281.244.0208; Fax. 281.244.1140 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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