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ISS eclipses Jupiter

Cecil

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Cecil
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Oct 7, 2002
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Tomorrow (May 13th) around 9:30 eastern, the ISS is going to eclipse Jupiter as seen from the east coast. Info about the eclipse is here, and a list of latitudes and longitudes you can see it from is here.

This is a very cool event; don't miss it if you live near the line!
 
Cecil said:
Tomorrow (May 13th) around 9:30 eastern, the ISS is going to eclipse Jupiter as seen from the east coast. Info about the eclipse is here, and a list of latitudes and longitudes you can see it from is here.

This is a very cool event; don't miss it if you live near the line!
Click to expand...
Checked the map of the area of totality, and it's tantalizingly close to where I live, but too far to go out there. So I guess I'll just go outside at 9:25 and have a look at Jupiter and watch the Space Station whiz by. Should be neat.
 
Cecil said:
This is a very cool event; don't miss it if you live near the line!
Click to expand...
Well, I was out there at 9:30. Live just south of DC, so I figured to see SOMETHING. Found Jupiter easily enough (almost straight overhead, slightly SW of the zenith), hung out there until 9:40.

Didn't see anything come out of the SW at all, though at about 9:35, something of about the same brightness as Jupiter came from DUE west, travelling quite fast. Passed Jupiter on the NORTH; from the moment I noticed it to the time it passed Jupiter couldn't have been more than about five seconds.

Conclusion: Could have been it. My wife says it was a plane, but I didn't see any blinking lights; don't know if that's significant or not.
 
Clouds rolled in about 30 minutes before the eclipse, but my girlfriend, near Harrisburg, PA, saw it at the same time you did. So you did see it. I didn't - grrrrr.

Ironically, I was in PA for the 2001 Leonid meteor shower, and a perfectly transparent sky was ruined by a fog bank. Of course, on Long Island, where I live, it was wonderful. Some day, err, night, I'll be at the right place at the right time.
 
Re: Re: ISS eclipses Jupiter

BPSCG said:
Well, I was out there at 9:30. Live just south of DC, so I figured to see SOMETHING. Found Jupiter easily enough (almost straight overhead, slightly SW of the zenith), hung out there until 9:40.

Didn't see anything come out of the SW at all, though at about 9:35, something of about the same brightness as Jupiter came from DUE west, travelling quite fast. Passed Jupiter on the NORTH; from the moment I noticed it to the time it passed Jupiter couldn't have been more than about five seconds.

Conclusion: Could have been it. My wife says it was a plane, but I didn't see any blinking lights; don't know if that's significant or not.
Click to expand...
You saw it. The ISS can get up to about magnitude -1 depending on the orientation of its solar panels. It takes about 5 minutes to go from horizon to horizon, but travels very quickly as it transits the meridian.

From what I've heard, the ISS tends to be misidentified as a plane. :D
 
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