Tuesday, July 7, 2009

The ISS in July: Part I (I Hope!)

A little cloudy here in Tucson, but that didn't stop me from going out to catch the ISS pass. Went to my usual haunt at Saguaro National Park East, right at the end of Speedway for those that know Tucson. Here is the first shot (click to embiggen).

IMG_1582This is the first part of the pass. There was a bit of a breeze and the clouds were moving fast. You can see they look blurred in this 15 second exposure.

The ISS moved to a more clear part of the sky and I got another shot.

IMG_1583

That's more like it. Hoping for better weather later this week, but the monsoon season in Tucson is pretty dicey.

Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.

7 comments:

Bar L. said...

This is really cool!!!!! I could get into this stuff!

kkdither said...

I went out and saw it very clearly. Always a treat. The mosquitoes were very pesky though and quickly chased me back in.

Hale, I saw something higher up and fainter following the same path very shorty after it. I'm pretty certain that it wasn't a plane.

I went in and looked on some of the tracking websites. Was there a Cosmos satellite following a similar orbit last night that could have been visible to the naked eye?

OrbsCorbs said...

Perhaps am alien spacecraft tailing the Space Station?

drewzepmeister said...

I'm pretty sure Barbara and I saw this while we were in the Saddleback Mountains the other night.

hale-bopp said...

Several candidates, KK, but not quite sure which one it would be as I don't see one following the orbit of the ISS that closely. Of course, Heavens Above only goes down to magnitude 4.5 so there are still others that are tougher to track.

Remember there is the ISS toolbag floating around up there in the same orbit...it has been sited visually from very dark sites. Problem is it usually comes around a few minutes BEFORE the ISS!

MinnesotaChick said...

Cool pics! I forgot to look, so thanks for posting them.

hale-bopp said...

Well, kk, you had a keen eye. According to Spaceweather you saw Progress 33, a Russian supply ship following the ISS.