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ISS Sightings July 2020


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There are a couple with really good azimuths by me Jul 15 and 18, just before 10 pm. I have written to folks in Kansas, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan.  @Max and 99 and @The Snowdog, I may get more than one player too close to each other, so I may have to ask for help getting matched pairs. This time of the year, it's possible that the ISS will stay in sunlight to Europe, if anyone can check on that and see if we can try to get players in Europe. I think the 15th goes up along the St Lawrence Seaway, so if anyone around Buffalo or areas up there can check for suitable sightings.

 

I've contacted The Hostas, Iconions, Ranger Boy and Libbykc.

Edited by vulture1957
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2 minutes ago, vulture1957 said:

There are a couple with really good azimuths by me Jul 15 and 18, just before 10 pm. I have written to folks in Kansas, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan.  @Max and 99 and @The Snowdog, I may get more than one player too close to each other, so I may have to ask for help getting matched pairs. This time of the year, it's possible that the ISS will stay in sunlight to Europe, if anyone can check on that and see if we can try to get players in Europe. I think the 15th goes up along the St Lawrence Seaway, so if anyone around Buffalo or areas up there can check for suitable sightings.

 

I've contacted The Hostas, Iconions, Ranger Boy and Libbykc.

Olathe, Kansas is interested...  :)  I'm glad to see it was the 10pm and not the 5am - I don't play well with others at 5am on a school day - LOL  -3.1 - it'll be bright and easy to track as long as the cloud cover is minimal.
 Lemme know...

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2 hours ago, iconions said:

Olathe, Kansas is interested...  :)  I'm glad to see it was the 10pm and not the 5am - I don't play well with others at 5am on a school day - LOL  -3.1 - it'll be bright and easy to track as long as the cloud cover is minimal.
 Lemme know...

if I was looking at the correct locations on Heaven's Above, Bethany and Olathe are just about 1.5 minutes of travel time. Chicago will be way more than 1 minute away from you. Not sure exactly where in Michigan The Hosta's are, so can't be sure if they make 1 minute from Chicago. Or if they're interested.

Edited by vulture1957
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6 hours ago, vulture1957 said:

There are a couple with really good azimuths by me Jul 15 and 18, just before 10 pm. I have written to folks in Kansas, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan.  @Max and 99 and @The Snowdog, I may get more than one player too close to each other, so I may have to ask for help getting matched pairs. This time of the year, it's possible that the ISS will stay in sunlight to Europe, if anyone can check on that and see if we can try to get players in Europe. I think the 15th goes up along the St Lawrence Seaway, so if anyone around Buffalo or areas up there can check for suitable sightings.

 

I've contacted The Hostas, Iconions, Ranger Boy and Libbykc.

 

I can make myself available for 15 July (22h50 to 23h00, Ottawa time).  The tricky part for me will be a finding a pandemic place for a printout of the heavens-above pages.  This might be my first such waymark without hard copies. 

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There will be night time visible passes across the Atlantic for a few days in July starting on the 13th. I'm not sure about the 12th.

I am in Texas, near the USA/Mexico Border. I have a Pass on the evening of July 13 at 21:47 to my South. It will pass near New Orleans, LA, and Washington DC. It will hit the coast of Frence on July 14, near Nantes at 05:08 , and continue SE along the west coast of Italy.
This Pass is far enough north so viewers can create Waymarks in the southern part of Ireland and Great Britain.
Let me know If anyone is interested in partnering with me.

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45 minutes ago, 8Nuts MotherGoose said:

There will be night time visible passes across the Atlantic for a few days in July starting on the 13th. I'm not sure about the 12th.

I am in Texas, near the USA/Mexico Border. I have a Pass on the evening of July 13 at 21:47 to my South. It will pass near New Orleans, LA, and Washington DC. It will hit the coast of Frence on July 14, near Nantes at 05:08 , and continue SE along the west coast of Italy.
This Pass is far enough north so viewers can create Waymarks in the southern part of Ireland and Great Britain.
Let me know If anyone is interested in partnering with me.

fly me to Ireland, and I'm all in!!  :lol:

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On 7/6/2020 at 4:22 PM, 8Nuts MotherGoose said:

There will be night time visible passes across the Atlantic for a few days in July starting on the 13th. I'm not sure about the 12th.

I am in Texas, near the USA/Mexico Border. I have a Pass on the evening of July 13 at 21:47 to my South. It will pass near New Orleans, LA, and Washington DC. It will hit the coast of Frence on July 14, near Nantes at 05:08 , and continue SE along the west coast of Italy.
This Pass is far enough north so viewers can create Waymarks in the southern part of Ireland and Great Britain.
Let me know If anyone is interested in partnering with me.

Ah, if only I was still in the DC area I could help.

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8 minutes ago, 8Nuts MotherGoose said:

Don't say, "Ah, if Only...."

Check for a Pass near you [I know there is one] and spend some time to find partners like we do. I have found a possible group of five for my Pass.

If you have forgotten how, ask me, I'll retrain you.

I think I've spent 20 hours this month alone working on finding partners. It'll be so rewarding when we get to watch together and create the waymarks! From just my work, I think there are three that have never done the ISS waymark before, so this is exciting!

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11 hours ago, Max and 99 said:

I think I've spent 20 hours this month alone working on finding partners. It'll be so rewarding when we get to watch together and create the waymarks! From just my work, I think there are three that have never done the ISS waymark before, so this is exciting!

yes, I've found I think it's 3 folks around Ontario/Quebec that don't have an ISS Sighting. Hoping they'll return my emails and partner with some of us.

Also waiting on return emails from Chicago areas.

Edited by vulture1957
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OK, I have me in Bethany OK, Iconions in Olathe KS, TheHosta's in Holland MI and elyob in Ottawa ON partnering for the late ISS pass on July 15. Yosam. in Warrenton MO needs a partner in OKC (99 or Snowdog?) and maybe Bon Echo would also partner in Ontario. Warrenton is too close to Olathe for Yosam. to work with us.

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18 hours ago, Max and 99 said:

Congrats @pmaupin on your first ISS waymark. An impressive first!

Thank you very much "Max and 99", it's thanks to your help.

 

This night for July 14, our national holiday, I could once again observe a very clear sky for the first time at 1:53 am at 85 ° and a second time at 3:30 am at 81 °, a real firework , it was splendid.

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On 7/5/2020 at 12:17 PM, iconions said:

Olathe, Kansas is interested...  :)  I'm glad to see it was the 10pm and not the 5am - I don't play well with others at 5am on a school day - LOL  -3.1 - it'll be bright and easy to track as long as the cloud cover is minimal.
 Lemme know...

Current Wednesday forecast for Beautiful Olathe (so redundant - you have to look the origins of the name Olathe) is for Thunderstorms in the morning and afternoon with clearing in the evening.  We are still 35 hours out and we know about the accuracy of weather people.  Keeping fingers crossed for tomorrow nights pass.   

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On 7/8/2020 at 11:17 PM, 8Nuts MotherGoose said:

Don't say, "Ah, if Only...."

Hey, 8 Nuts, I have a question for you about visits for these. It says I should do a visit to the closest sighting to my location. If Max and 99 also post a waymark for this pass, do I visit their waymark, or the person who I partnered with? The way I read it, it could go either way. I would think it would be closest person who partnered with you.

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The rules are vague. Waymarking rules say you can always Visit your own Waymark. ISS Category Rules say when you observe an ISS Pass you can Visit the nearest Waymark created for that Pass. I don't think the author ever considered two or more groups Waymarking the same Pass.

I believe the intent was for you to visit the nearest Waymark of your Group. Lets keep it that way.

I can see penalties if we impose cross Visits between groups to nearest Waymark.

Vulture 1957, through hard work and some good luck, finds a partner in Monaco. He wants no other partners because he wants to Visit Monaco. All goes well and two Waymarks are created. BUT on the same Pass, someone in Chicago pairs with someone in New York and they create Waymarks. Vulture 1957 now has to Visit Chicago instead of Monaco.

If there are two groups creating Waymarks on the same Pass. Vulture1957 creates a Waymark but his partner gets clouded out. He can Visit his own Waymark and he can Visit the nearest Waymark created by the other group.

 

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3 hours ago, 8Nuts MotherGoose said:

The rules are vague.

 

Here's another question. I used the Coordinate Calculator with the coords for my sighting and Tubatabs this morning. It gives me 1509.68 miles between us.

If I use your info on 4.758 mo;es/sec (from an old Forum post) the 5 min 53 sec difference in sighting gives 1679.574 miles. BIG difference.

How do I figure out the distance??

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12 minutes ago, vulture1957 said:

Here's another question. I used the Coordinate Calculator with the coords for my sighting and Tubatabs this morning. It gives me 1509.68 miles between us.

If I use your info on 4.758 mo;es/sec (from an old Forum post) the 5 min 53 sec difference in sighting gives 1679.574 miles. BIG difference.

How do I figure out the distance??

I'll answer. Time X Speed.

293 miles per minute. 472 km/minute

The time is the difference between your max time and your partner's max time.

Edited by Max and 99
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4 hours ago, vulture1957 said:

Here's another question. I used the Coordinate Calculator with the coords for my sighting and Tubatabs this morning. It gives me 1509.68 miles between us.

If I use your info on 4.758 mo;es/sec (from an old Forum post) the 5 min 53 sec difference in sighting gives 1679.574 miles. BIG difference.

How do I figure out the distance??

 

4 hours ago, Max and 99 said:

I'll answer. Time X Speed.

293 miles per minute. 472 km/minute

The time is the difference between your max time and your partner's max time.

You measure the distance along the Ground Track by multiplying the elapsed time by the speed.

If you search the internet to see how fast the ISS is traveling, you get anything from 17,200 mph to 14,710 mph (4.777 mps to 4.08 mps) 

1509.68 miles divide by 5 min 53 sec = 4.2767 miles/sec. That is in the lower half of the speed range.

1679.574 miles divide by 5 min 53 sec = 4.758 miles/ sec. That is in the upper half of the speed range.

If we use 293 miles/minute that is listed in the ISS Category  instructions -  5.883 min x 293 = 1723.82 miles. That's 4.88 mps which is a bit above the speed range.

Having quoted two people above, I will quote a third, my friend, Burger King, "Have it your Way!"

Use what works for you. Personally I feel that 293 miles per minutes is too high.

When you are using a coordinate checker you are measuring the distance between two points that are not on the flight path. Is the checker measuring a flat earth distance, or is it using a more complex formula for a curved Earth?

In the below photo you can see:

Red is the ISS Flight Path

Black is the portion that two people are watching

Blue is the distance between Coordinates of the two observers.

You can see how the blue line is longer than the observed black line since it the hypotenuses of a right triangle verses the base. This is why we use the elapsed time multiplied by the speed along the ground path.

ISS Temp.jpg

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I'm not going to decline any waymark just for math if the time and speed are shown and the math shows the decimal point in the right position. If it's a 3.5 minute observed pass for 10,500 miles, I'm probably going to decline and ask them to check their math.

 

I have already discovered that we are using the ISS speed for our calculations rather than the Earths ground path speed.

The ISS orbit Circumference is 42,650 km

The  Earth's   Circumference is 40,074 km

Based upon a 90 minute orbit

The ISS Speed is 473.888 km/minute (294.5 miles/minute)

The Earth's Ground Track speed is 445.269 km/minute (276.7 miles/ minute)

These number are still a rough guess because I only checked for Circumference of each on one web site.

 

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What a great night for ISS watching. Nice, warm weather, clear skies, calm winds (which are not common here in Oklahoma "where the winds go whipping 'cross the plains". Once I finally pulled the ISS out of the glare of the city lights, I had clear view until it went back into the glare close to the horizon. I hope the other partners have a good view, also.

 

I think the next date is Sept or Oct. I have a few possible new partners in the Chicago and Ontario areas that I'll be trying to get set up for their first sightings.

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2 minutes ago, vulture1957 said:

What a great night for ISS watching. Nice, warm weather, clear skies, calm winds (which are not common here in Oklahoma "where the winds go whipping 'cross the plains". Once I finally pulled the ISS out of the glare of the city lights, I had clear view until it went back into the glare close to the horizon. I hope the other partners have a good view, also.

 

I think the next date is Sept or Oct. I have a few possible new partners in the Chicago and Ontario areas that I'll be trying to get set up for their first sightings.

It was a good night here in Olathe...  I even talked my adult daughter in watching it with me.  Scattered clouds, but nothing that got in the way.  I got a great 5 minute show

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15 minutes ago, vulture1957 said:

I think the next date is Sept or Oct. I have a few possible new partners in the Chicago and Ontario areas that I'll be trying to get set up for their first sightings.

Yes, every two months is best. But September will probably have a shadow between North America and Europe.

If you go to Heavens Above and then to the pass list page - in the upper right you see "HOME I INFO I ORBIT I

Click on ORBIT. Look at the lower picture showing the entire current pass. When the upper loop of the pass aligns with the night shadow, we have lots of views.

The ISS passes move west slightly faster than the night shadow. It will be September when they align again.

Right now Europe also has no shadow on the pass in the evening hours. They might be able to catch a pass all the way to Australia for an evening or three. Then the shadow will start to reappear in the pass at the upper part of the loop as it curves downward and a team with Australia will be impossible.

 

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