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Well, it ended up being just a bit too cloudy here. I saw patches of sky, but not enough to see any stars or the ISS. :(

 

Friday night, approx 10:00 pm EDT might work for me. Looks like the path is visible for southern IL to Maine and Quebec. That will be my last chance for the foreseeable future. (There is a pass tonight, but it is forecast to be raining.)

 

BUMMER!! If I'm on Friday's pass (and it's not at a nutty time), I'll go out and look.

 

Gary - I have my waymark written and ready to go, except for the name of my partner for site 2. :) thanks

 

:rolleyes: The name of your partner for site 2 is TriciaG :laughing:

Since TriciaG's time for Friday is earlier than last nights pass, yours will be earlier too.

Edited by 8Nuts MotherGoose
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Well, it ended up being just a bit too cloudy here. I saw patches of sky, but not enough to see any stars or the ISS. :(

 

Friday night, approx 10:00 pm EDT might work for me. Looks like the path is visible for southern IL to Maine and Quebec. That will be my last chance for the foreseeable future. (There is a pass tonight, but it is forecast to be raining.)

 

TriciaG, and everyone else, If you go to the ISS page with the list of passes. Above the list is a < and > button. Click on the > button. That will take you to the list for the next 10 days. The < will take you to the past 10 days.

If you make plans too far into the future, due to tasks that will change the height and speed of the orbit, the times and path may change as they become present time. You'll have to recheck them.

I started planning two weeks ago for last nights pass. Compared to then, last night's time was one minute off, and the Altitude was 1 off.

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TriciaG -- on Friday 26 May I will be able to see the ISS in Garland at:

 

66 degrees max altitude,

 

-2.4 magnitude,

 

between 20:51:15 and 20:57:47

 

Will this pass work for you too?

It should! Mine is:

Bowmanville, ON

-3.5 magnitude

between 21:56:01 and 22:02:36

peak 21:59:18

72° max altitude

Edited by TriciaG
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TriciaG -- on Friday 26 May I will be able to see the ISS in Garland at:

 

66 degrees max altitude,

 

-2.4 magnitude,

 

between 20:51:15 and 20:57:47

 

Will this pass work for you too?

It should! Mine is:

Bowmanville, ON

-3.5 magnitude

between 21:56:01 and 22:02:36

peak 21:59:18

72° max altitude

 

AWESOME!! Let's do it :) I'll set an alarm on my phone right now :)

Edited by Benchmark Blasterz
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We, the Reviewers, use the Highest Point Time as a Location point on the Flight path. If the two parties show a time difference of one minute or greater then we know they were at least 293 miles/472 km apart. We can also verify those times by doing an ISS search for their towns and checking the pass Highest Point time.

Most passes last about 6 minutes. The center of that 6-minute window of opportunity is the Highest Point. any viewing during those 6 minutes is acceptable. If you see it to the West as it rises, and then it goes behind clouds, or disappears into the Earths shadow, before the Highest Point, it is acceptable. If you don't see it until after the Highest Point, it is acceptable.

 

Thanks for the lucid explanations. For some reason I had long ago come to the errant conclusion that "Time", as in the recorded time of sighting, was important to the Waymark. I see now that it is not particularly relevant.

 

Now to set up an attempt...

 

Keith

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We, the Reviewers, use the Highest Point Time as a Location point on the Flight path. If the two parties show a time difference of one minute or greater then we know they were at least 293 miles/472 km apart. We can also verify those times by doing an ISS search for their towns and checking the pass Highest Point time.

Most passes last about 6 minutes. The center of that 6-minute window of opportunity is the Highest Point. any viewing during those 6 minutes is acceptable. If you see it to the West as it rises, and then it goes behind clouds, or disappears into the Earths shadow, before the Highest Point, it is acceptable. If you don't see it until after the Highest Point, it is acceptable.

 

Thanks for the lucid explanations. For some reason I had long ago come to the errant conclusion that "Time", as in the recorded time of sighting, was important to the Waymark. I see now that it is not particularly relevant.

 

Now to set up an attempt...

 

Keith

 

Can you see it Friday? We can do a triple viewing.

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We, the Reviewers, use the Highest Point Time as a Location point on the Flight path. If the two parties show a time difference of one minute or greater then we know they were at least 293 miles/472 km apart. We can also verify those times by doing an ISS search for their towns and checking the pass Highest Point time.

Most passes last about 6 minutes. The center of that 6-minute window of opportunity is the Highest Point. any viewing during those 6 minutes is acceptable. If you see it to the West as it rises, and then it goes behind clouds, or disappears into the Earths shadow, before the Highest Point, it is acceptable. If you don't see it until after the Highest Point, it is acceptable.

 

Thanks for the lucid explanations. For some reason I had long ago come to the errant conclusion that "Time", as in the recorded time of sighting, was important to the Waymark. I see now that it is not particularly relevant.

 

Now to set up an attempt...

 

Keith

 

Can you see it Friday? We can do a triple viewing.

 

I can watch it, but it is only at Altitude of 30°, so I can't Waymark it.

Tonight I have one passing to the SE at an Altitude of 76°. See next Post.

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I have an ISS Pass tonight heading NE across the USA.

Here's a photo of a quicky created path for tonight.

The path line is NOT centered on the Alt=90 path but it is close.

The first four numbers in the front of Each Waypoint is the Hour:Minute

The last 4 is the Altitude and direction.

I am available if someone needs a partner.

 

05178f74-05d6-4f38-8c90-e8f8bfce51e9.jpg

Edited by 8Nuts MotherGoose
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I put the new calculated distance in the my waymark for yesterday. (I hadn't used this method. I took the Google map distance between the two cities.)

 

Can you explain this method? I use the GM distance

 

The distance is measured along the flight path from the Highest Point of the first observation to the Highest Point of the 2nd Observation (etc, if more than two observations)

If you use Google Map to calculate the distance between two points, It calculates the shortest road miles between the two towns.

Since we know the ISS Ground Path speed averages 293 miles per minute. We can multiply 293 by the amount of time, in minutes, that passed between the two Observation Points.

Using the numbers from the ISS Pass Waymarks that ripraff and I created:

22:59:08 - Observation time at ripraff's Site 2 Highest Point

21:52:34 - subtract Observation time at 8Nuts' Site 1 Highest Point

00:06:34 - Total time of flight between the two points.

06:34 = 6.566 minutes

6.566 X 293 miles/minute = 1,924 miles.

 

A quick "do it in your head" calculation: 6 minutes X 300 miles/min = 1800 miles plus 150 miles (1/2 minute) = 1950 miles, is close enough.

 

I tried a couple different calculations:

Google Map came up with 2024 miles between our two towns.

Garmin MapSource, on my computer, using several points along the curve, showed 1690 miles.

We don't reject a Waymark if the number looks good. We might reject if it's 19,240 miles or 192 miles.

For extremes, lets say person A is NW of the pass and sees it at Max Altitude of 46 at 20:21:00, and person B is SE of the pass at Max Altitude of 46 at 20:22:02. The Flight distance would be about 300 miles. The two towns might be 600 miles apart. If they listed 600 miles, we might question how they got that number.

Edited by 8Nuts MotherGoose
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Can you see it Friday? We can do a triple viewing.

 

I can see it on several passes Friday & Saturday, in fact every day for the next week, but all the passes over us are pretty much east-west, a long way north of you.

 

BK-Hunters, Where is your location? We can't know who to match with you if we don't know which passes to look for. "a long way north of you" covers a lot of area.

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The whole idea of this Category is to get you, and a partner some distance away, out to have a little fun while observing the ISS as it passes over on the same Pass. We want you to understand more clearly the relationship between the Speed, Time, and Distance traveled by the ISS during that Pass. To give you that fun, We require a simple screen shot of the Ground Path instead of a complicated timed Photo of a streak of light in the night sky. We ask for simple math to calculate distance instead of three dimensional sphere geometry.

If you choose to take a timed photo and it turns out good, we will gladly accept it as your Waymark photo. If you choose to do higher math to calculate the distance to the nearest inch/cm, we will probably accept it, but don't expect us to double check your math.

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BK-Hunters, Where is your location? We can't know who to match with you if we don't know which passes to look for. "a long way north of you" covers a lot of area.

 

So, for that matter, does "a long way south of you". :lol:

 

We're 7 miles north of the 49th in central BC. Coords are about 49.099806 -117.686424

 

Keith

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BK-Hunters, Where is your location? We can't know who to match with you if we don't know which passes to look for. "a long way north of you" covers a lot of area.

 

So, for that matter, does "a long way south of you". :lol:

 

We're 7 miles north of the 49th in central BC. Coords are about 49.099806 -117.686424

 

Keith

When you said the passes were basically running East-West, That told me you had to be close to the Latitude 50. And since you have passes every day, it has to be N50. At this time of the year, S50 is in the Earths shadow most of the time, with few, if any visible passes.

I'll see what I can discover.

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BK-Hunters, Where is your location? We can't know who to match with you if we don't know which passes to look for. "a long way north of you" covers a lot of area.

 

So, for that matter, does "a long way south of you". :lol:

 

We're 7 miles north of the 49th in central BC. Coords are about 49.099806 -117.686424

 

Keith

When you said the passes were basically running East-West, That told me you had to be close to the Latitude 50. And since you have passes every day, it has to be N50. At this time of the year, S50 is in the Earths shadow most of the time, with few, if any visible passes.

I'll see what I can discover.

 

You're in a tough area to get partners. Sunset is at around 20:45, so it's late when ISS Passes become visible. You're too close to the major cities in Washington to your SW to get partners there, unless you make a short road trip to the East. You might find someone in Calgary. Winnipeg is 2 hours later, so getting someone to stay until 1 or 2 am might be difficult.

While checking for passes, I did discover three that you could search for partners along.

Here's a Map of some passes.

 

5eeae3e1-db4a-486a-b064-45dc2d0d25c3_l.jpg

 

Pass 2 and Pass 3 ended when they entered the Earth's shadow. I checked some others that started turning southward sooner and discovered many of them also got shadowed out.

 

One nice thing about your location: When The ISS passes over Hawaii, it will also pass south of you at 74° on Pass 1, but times will be different. On this Pass 1 Hawaii is about 1/2 hr before sunset.

Edited by 8Nuts MotherGoose
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BK-Hunters, Where is your location? We can't know who to match with you if we don't know which passes to look for. "a long way north of you" covers a lot of area.

 

So, for that matter, does "a long way south of you". :lol:

 

We're 7 miles north of the 49th in central BC. Coords are about 49.099806 -117.686424

 

Keith

When you said the passes were basically running East-West, That told me you had to be close to the Latitude 50. And since you have passes every day, it has to be N50. At this time of the year, S50 is in the Earths shadow most of the time, with few, if any visible passes.

I'll see what I can discover.

 

Gary- How do you keep that stuff in your head!! You are one smart cookie :)

 

As for the ISS pass tonight - gonna be clear as a bell in Dallas :)

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BK-Hunters, Where is your location? We can't know who to match with you if we don't know which passes to look for. "a long way north of you" covers a lot of area.

 

So, for that matter, does "a long way south of you". :lol:

 

We're 7 miles north of the 49th in central BC. Coords are about 49.099806 -117.686424

 

Keith

When you said the passes were basically running East-West, That told me you had to be close to the Latitude 50. And since you have passes every day, it has to be N50. At this time of the year, S50 is in the Earths shadow most of the time, with few, if any visible passes.

I'll see what I can discover.

 

Gary- How do you keep that stuff in your head!! You are one smart cookie :)

 

As for the ISS pass tonight - gonna be clear as a bell in Dallas :)

 

Thanks for thinking I'm one smart cookie. I have been an avid ISS watcher for years and have memorized most of the information.

If you look above the list of passes, you will see a line of information that starts with a blue "Orbit". The "402 x 408" is the max and min height above the Earth on this pass. 51.6° is the highest latitude the ISS will reach. I usually just round it to 50°.

Here's some more buttons to play with on the ISS pages:

Up to this point you have been looking at a list of visible passes. Just above the list is "passes to include" If you click on the dot by "all", your list will get much longer. The right column now shows the Pass Type: visible, daylight, or unlit (night).

The blue "Orbit" above the list, and the blue "Orbit" above the list and to the right will take you to a page showing three real time visual displays of the ISS orbit. Each also has an ISS Icon, showing where the ISS is currently located on the pass.

Also on the upper right of the list page is "Home". This will take you to the page after you have selected your location, and before your list page. On the Home page is a small map of the current ISS Position above the Earth. At the top left is usually information about some upcoming astrnomical phenomina.

"Configuration" allows you to change your location as needed.

"Satellites" gives you a list of satellites to choose from. all are visible to the naked eye. Usually we choose ISS to go to the list page.

"Astronomy" on down gives you many other options to explore.

 

On the "Change your observation location" page, you can enter a City, State, Country. Or scroll to the bottom, and you can enter coordinates. If you enter coordinates, you may also want to change the name.

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Gary- How do you keep that stuff in your head!! You are one smart cookie :)

 

As for the ISS pass tonight - gonna be clear as a bell in Dallas :)

 

Thanks for thinking I'm one smart cookie. I have been an avid ISS watcher for years and have memorized most of the information.

 

If you look above the list of passes, you will see a line of information that starts with a blue "Orbit". The "402 x 408" is the max and min height above the Earth on this pass. 51.6° is the highest latitude the ISS will reach. I usually just round it to 50°.

Here's some more buttons to play with on the ISS pages:

 

Up to this point you have been looking at a list of visible passes. Just above the list is "passes to include" If you click on the dot by "all", your list will get much longer. The right column now shows the Pass Type: visible, daylight, or unlit (night).

 

The blue "Orbit" above the list, and the blue "Orbit" above the list and to the right will take you to a page showing three real time visual displays of the ISS orbit. Each also has an ISS Icon, showing where the ISS is currently located on the pass.

 

Also on the upper right of the list page is "Home". This will take you to the page after you have selected your location, and before your list page. On the Home page is a small map of the current ISS Position above the Earth. At the top left is usually information about some upcoming astrnomical phenomena.

 

"Configuration" allows you to change your location as needed.

 

"Satellites" gives you a list of satellites to choose from. all are visible to the naked eye. Usually we choose ISS to go to the list page.

 

"Astronomy" on down gives you many other options to explore.

 

On the "Change your observation location" page, you can enter a City, State, Country. Or scroll to the bottom, and you can enter coordinates. If you enter coordinates, you may also want to change the name.

 

Oooooooooo COOOOOLLLLL!! Those are rabbit holes that Daddy Blaster LOVES exploring in :) Older Sister Blaster likes looking for (and identifying) strange satellites and visible space junk. We saw an orbiting rocket booster the other night. :)

Edited by Benchmark Blasterz
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Overcast here, moreso than the other night. :(

 

Awww you're kidding!! I saw the ISS through scattered high thin clouds here in Dallas.

 

Let's look for another chance Tricia :)

 

Tricia -- I have been in Heavens Above this morning and there are no passes visible in Dallas that are high enough through the first week of June, which is as far out as we could see.

 

Maybe Gary knows when another set of opportunities will arise, or another waymarker can help you?

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And the weather isn't promising for the next week or two, anyway. We've had a record wet May, and the weather pattern doesn't seem to be changing much.

 

I'll just keep my eye on this thread and the WM Topics forum in general and see if any promising passes show up in future.

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BK-Hunters, Where is your location? We can't know who to match with you if we don't know which passes to look for. "a long way north of you" covers a lot of area.

 

So, for that matter, does "a long way south of you". :lol:

 

We're 7 miles north of the 49th in central BC. Coords are about 49.099806 -117.686424

 

Keith

When you said the passes were basically running East-West, That told me you had to be close to the Latitude 50. And since you have passes every day, it has to be N50. At this time of the year, S50 is in the Earths shadow most of the time, with few, if any visible passes.

I'll see what I can discover.

 

You're in a tough area to get partners. Sunset is at around 20:45, so it's late when ISS Passes become visible. You're too close to the major cities in Washington to your SW to get partners there, unless you make a short road trip to the East. You might find someone in Calgary. Winnipeg is 2 hours later, so getting someone to stay until 1 or 2 am might be difficult.

While checking for passes, I did discover three that you could search for partners along.

Here's a Map of some passes.

 

5eeae3e1-db4a-486a-b064-45dc2d0d25c3_l.jpg

 

Pass 2 and Pass 3 ended when they entered the Earth's shadow. I checked some others that started turning southward sooner and discovered many of them also got shadowed out.

 

One nice thing about your location: When The ISS passes over Hawaii, it will also pass south of you at 74° on Pass 1, but times will be different. On this Pass 1 Hawaii is about 1/2 hr before sunset.

 

There must be passes where an Ottawa partner would be adequate.

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BK-Hunters, Where is your location? We can't know who to match with you if we don't know which passes to look for. "a long way north of you" covers a lot of area.

 

So, for that matter, does "a long way south of you". :lol:

 

We're 7 miles north of the 49th in central BC. Coords are about 49.099806 -117.686424

 

Keith

When you said the passes were basically running East-West, That told me you had to be close to the Latitude 50. And since you have passes every day, it has to be N50. At this time of the year, S50 is in the Earths shadow most of the time, with few, if any visible passes.

I'll see what I can discover.

 

You're in a tough area to get partners. Sunset is at around 20:45, so it's late when ISS Passes become visible. You're too close to the major cities in Washington to your SW to get partners there, unless you make a short road trip to the East. You might find someone in Calgary. Winnipeg is 2 hours later, so getting someone to stay until 1 or 2 am might be difficult.

While checking for passes, I did discover three that you could search for partners along.

Here's a Map of some passes.

 

5eeae3e1-db4a-486a-b064-45dc2d0d25c3_l.jpg

 

Pass 2 and Pass 3 ended when they entered the Earth's shadow. I checked some others that started turning southward sooner and discovered many of them also got shadowed out.

 

One nice thing about your location: When The ISS passes over Hawaii, it will also pass south of you at 74° on Pass 1, but times will be different. On this Pass 1 Hawaii is about 1/2 hr before sunset.

 

There must be passes where an Ottawa partner would be adequate.

 

elyob, there was a pass last night, or rather - early this morning your time. The evidence was right in front of you. Look at Pass 2 in the above photo.

Here's a photo of Pass 2 Ground Paths for Vancouver (near BK-Hunters), for Winnipeg, and for Ottawa.

 

469ad30d-4d2e-4d32-a5d6-70184110a9da_l.jpg

 

Because the ISS is close to it's highest Latitude, a small difference at Vancouver will make a big difference when it starts heading south.

Check the left columns of the pass and compare the direction with the right column. Here we see it rises over the horizon at 10° W and sets at

10° ENE. This tells us that the ISS is still heading slightly North. If it said W and E, the ISS would drop into the USA before it reaches Ottawa.

Winnipeg is being used as a Check Point on the pass to check times and path.

Vancouver shows the path near N50 W100 at 23:46 (circled), Winnipeg shows the same point and ,in this case, Ottawa also shows the same point. The Hour time is different due to time zones, but the minute is the same, which tells you they are all on the same PASS. I also circled the xx:50 minute mark because it is near a lake and can be used as a check point.

If you look at the east end of the Pass SE of Ottawa, you see the pass become a dotted line. This tells you the ISS has entered the Earth's shadow and is no longer visible.

Vancouver has a late sunset and can't view the ISS until 22:00 or after. With the time zone changes between the viewers, elyob in Ottawa will have to be awake between 01:00 and 03:00 to view the pass.

If Vancouver waits until a morning pass, any Pass after 03:00 will enter Daylight just after passing Winnipeg, with a sunrise at about 05:40.

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I was out on the town last night...don't tell. There were only raindrops in the heavens here anyway. Through this thread, I'm letting BK-Hunters know that I might be available to help them with their waymark.

 

Thank you 8nuts MotherGoose for helping us all with this.

Edited by elyob
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I was out on the town last night...don't tell. There were only raindrops in the heavens here anyway. Through this thread, I'm letting BK-Hunters know that I might be available to help them with their waymark.

 

Thank you 8nuts MotherGoose for helping us all with this.

 

I know they do a lot of traveling, but you might also try catching Peter and Gloria at home near Winnipeg. I have not contacted them.

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I was out on the town last night...don't tell. There were only raindrops in the heavens here anyway. Through this thread, I'm letting BK-Hunters know that I might be available to help them with their waymark.

 

Thank you 8nuts MotherGoose for helping us all with this.

 

CRAP! I haven't followed this thread for a coupla days. I'll look at Heavens Above right now and see what's up.

 

LATER - A check tells me it's a no go for this month. We're leaving for Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, likely on the 5th, and there were no passes before that which work for both of us. Oh well, we have the rest of the summer.

 

Keith

Edited by BK-Hunters
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I was out on the town last night...don't tell. There were only raindrops in the heavens here anyway. Through this thread, I'm letting BK-Hunters know that I might be available to help them with their waymark.

 

Thank you 8nuts MotherGoose for helping us all with this.

 

CRAP! I haven't followed this thread for a coupla days. I'll look at Heavens Above right now and see what's up.

 

LATER - A check tells me it's a no go for this month. We're leaving for Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, likely on the 5th, and there were no passes before that which work for both of us. Oh well, we have the rest of the summer.

 

Keith

 

Check for the towns you will be spending the nights. Might be able to hook up with someone in California to the SW or someone in Kansas/Missouri to the SE depending on which way the pass is going.

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Check for the towns you will be spending the nights. Might be able to hook up with someone in California to the SW or someone in Kansas/Missouri to the SE depending on which way the pass is going.

 

Unless there should happen to be a pass just before bedtime we won't be doing any ISS watching. As a rule, when we're on the road we're beat at the end of the day. (We're old, dontcha know) :lol:

 

We'll wait until July then see what's passing by overhead. Thanks for all your input and Thanks to Elyob for volunteering to try for the other end for us.

 

We have Peter & Gloria to the east and The Beav to the southwest that we can hook up with.

 

Keith

Edited by BK-Hunters
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On 9/3/2017 at 9:22 AM, vulture1957 said:

8Nuts, you seem to know a lot about this, maybe you can explain something for me. I look up a pass on HeavensAbove for me and see the ground track. If i figure out a location that is on that path and then change the "my location" to that city, the track doesn't look the same.

Lets first assume we are looking at an ISS Pass going over your city and heading to the Northeast. Because the path is shown on a "Flat Earth," Your center point of search always shows North as straight up on the screen and the path is a straight line. When you find City "B" to the northeast at the edge of your original view, because of the curvature of the Earth, due north for City "B" would be seen on your original view as a line leaning to the NNW.

Once you go to the center view for City "B", North is straight up and the path seems to have become slightly more horizontal.

If you go back through these posts and look at some of the map pictures I've posted, you can see this path curve that is not shown on the center point view.

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Back in August during the peak of the 2017 Perseid Meteor Shower, we were camping within a dark sky preserve (Northern Bruce Peninsula, Ontario N45) and went out to watch the `shooting starts`. Got to chatting with another camper who told me he just watch the ISS pass by. I thought of this category (as well as a locationless cache still available on a different listing service). Okay, that was a few months ago now and I finally sat down to figure this out. Having some trouble figuring out the Heavens Above site, but I see some dates/times on the NASA site. I'm in Hamilton ON (Canada), N43 W79. I'd like to try a few sightings before pairing up. I guess I'm looking for some help and to see if anyone is interested?

Thanks

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I knew my 6 years in a university science program would pay off at some point :wacko:. Just figured out how to enter my location into Heavens Above. 

http://heavens-above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=25544&lat=43.2557&lng=-79.8711&loc=Hamilton&alt=100&tz=EST

tonight looks good for one, at 88 degrees height although clouds may be a problem. If I get a chance tonight to take a look I'll report back. Surrounds by a few million people here in the "Golden Horseshoe" so will be interesting to see how visible the ISS is from the city.

Aside from tonight, looks like Oct 11th, 12th and 14th will be the next "permissible" sighting for me (80°, 54° and 74, respectively).

I don't know too many active waymarkers in that orbit except the Oct 11th pass looks good for BK-Hunters i think (Creston BC area?) http://heavens-above.com/passdetails.aspx?lat=49.0955&lng=-116.5135&loc=Creston&alt=614&tz=MST&satid=25544&mjd=58038.0833043063&type=V

Odd, looking at the Oct 11th ground pass for Hamilton, i would predict Philadelphia PA to be another good spot. But when i change the location to Philly and check the groundpath for Oct11th the path looks completely different:

http://heavens-above.com/gtrack.aspx?satid=25544&mjd=58037.9546134425&lat=39.9526&lng=-75.1652&loc=Philadelphia&alt=14&tz=EST

http://heavens-above.com/gtrack.aspx?satid=25544&mjd=58038.0209084941&lat=43.2557&lng=-79.8711&loc=Hamilton&alt=100&tz=EST

Edited by Bon Echo
added last paragraph
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Bon Echo said:

"Odd, looking at the Oct 11th ground pass for Hamilton, i would predict Philadelphia PA to be another good spot. But when i change the location to Philly and check the groundpath for Oct11th the path looks completely different:

http://heavens-above.com/gtrack.aspx?satid=25544&mjd=58037.9546134425&lat=39.9526&lng=-75.1652&loc=Philadelphia&alt=14&tz=EST

http://heavens-above.com/gtrack.aspx?satid=25544&mjd=58038.0209084941&lat=43.2557&lng=-79.8711&loc=Hamilton&alt=100&tz=EST "

E.

There are two passes for Philadelphia for Oct 11. You got the wrong one. Check the pass Times. It should be:

http://www.heavens-above.com/gtrack.aspx?satid=25544&mjd=58038.0210958711&lat=39.9526&lng=-75.1652&loc=Philadelphia&alt=14&tz=EST

Unfortunately, the correct pass for Hamilton/Philadelphia is below the Minimum 45° altitude in Philadelphia. For that pass, the ISS goes into the Earths shadow just before reaching Hamilton (note: doted line on path means in Earths shadow) and is seen in Philadelphia to the NW at Max Altitude of only 31° when it enters the shadow. Hamilton will be able to watch the ISS fade and disappear almost directly overhead.

EDIT: Watch the time schedules. Creston in Western Canada is 3 hours behind Hamilton. An 8:00 pm pass in Creston would be an 11:00 pm pass in Hamilton. I doubt if the two of you could get together for the same Pass unless it was in June or July. During that time, the sun shines over the North Pole and keeps the ISS visible through most of the night in the higher Latitudes.

 

Edited by 8Nuts MotherGoose
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8Nuts MotherGoose:  thanks for the reply and info. I will keep at it and get a better feel for it and will pay better attention to the times.

So it sounds like I will need to find a partner a bit closer to home.

On a mildly related sidenote, we visited the Ontario Science Centre  on Saturday where I was able to view dirt from Mars and from the moon lots of space-related items. also enjoyed a presentation in the planetarium. Very interesting.

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