Re: [Utah-astronomy] STS/ISS tomorrow (maybe Monday)
Tonight's 10:12pm passage will be a good opportunity for a wide angle photo capturing the ISS track, the Moon and Mars in one 3 deg angle. For GOTO camera pointing purposes from Salt Lake City, near its closest approach, the ISS will pass nearly over 8 mag star HD79726 (SAO 98464) and celestial south of the Moon. HD79276 is about 50' southsoutheast of mag 5.3 bright star pi2 Cnc. Mars at 1.5mags is 2 degs north of the Moon and about three degrees celestial north of the closest ISS path approach. As usual for such photos, exposure balancing a -3.3, -8.7 and 1.5 mag objects will be difficult and a second properly balanced exposure of the Moon quickly after the ISS passes with Photoshop post processing to merge the two images is probably the best bet. ISS passage data: 2008-06-07 22h15m25s MDT ISS Appears 22h10m39s 2.7mag az:299.4° WNW horizon Culmination 22h15m25s -3.3mag az:222.7° SW h:34.2° distance: 583.2km height above Earth: 346.5km elevation of sun: -12° Disappears 22h16m54s -3.0mag az:168.8° S h:19.8° A closest approach ISS to the Moon will be at approximately JEDate 09 16 23 +13 59 13 or a distance of about 1.1 degrees. Moon az and alt J2000 RA:9h17m33.74s DE:+15°15'53.6" JEDate RA:9h18m01.68s DE:+15°13'45.2" Mag -8.7 Azimuth :+268°16' Altitude :+25°45' Mars position: J2000 RA: 9h16m12.05s DE:+17°19'14.3" Date RA: 9h16m40.28s DE:+17°17'06.5" Mag 1.5 Azimuth :+270°18' Altitude :+26°45' The lunar transit centerline ground track runs across a relatively inaccessible portion of Utah. It runs from the northeast corner of Nevada into the northwest corner of Utah about 4 miles south of Grouse Creek, Utah at Lon: 113°54m26s W Lat: +41°38m05s, about 12 miles north along a dirt road going north from state highway 30 near the Lucin turnoff. (Not that I'm going. -:)). - Kurt
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Canopus56