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ISS over Texarkana tonight.
Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 2:09 pm
by BigGuy
The International Space Station will be flying almost directly over Texarkana tonight.(10/29/2012) It will appear from the northwest (314°) at 7:55 p.m. and go down down in the southeast (134°) at 8:07 p.m. Anybody in NE Texas should have a good shot at spotting it.
There is an app called ISS spotter available for free for the iPhone. It's probably also available for Android too. This is a cool app that tells you where the ISS is at any given moment. It also tells you when ther are flyovers of your location, and where to look.
Re: ISS over Texarkana tonight.
Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 8:05 pm
by 2farnorth
Just came back in from watching it. It was quite bright til it passed over head then it faded quickly as it went east and closer to the bright moon. Passed over here almost exactly 8.:00 pm.
Re: ISS over Texarkana tonight.
Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 8:59 pm
by BigGuy
I just watched the International Space Station go overhead. It was cool. I first picked it up about 30° above the horizon, coming from the northwest. It was bright, but at first didn't show a lot of apparent motion. It appeared to pickup speed as it climbed into the sky. By the time it was directly overhead, it was really moving.
I had a pair of binoculars, hoping to be able to discern a shape. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to hold them steady enough for a good look. I think that if I'd had then tripod mounted, I probably could have seen an actual shape.
It was initially yellow in color. But as it reached apex, it began to turn more orange. It continued to reflect longer wavelengths, eventually turing a very reddish orange, before fading out as it passed into earth's shadow. I've seen smaller satellites before and have witnessed them appear to just blink out as they pass into shadow. I was surprised that the ISS took so much longer. I suppose it is the greater size. Whatever the reason, it was a thrilling and inspiring sight.
Re: ISS over Texarkana tonight.
Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 9:09 pm
by Keith B
I watched it tonight also from the Dallas area. I have watched a lot of visible passes of ISS, the shuttle, MIR (when it was up) and other miscellaneous satellites. What was really cool was to see the ISS when the shuttle was docked with it and it was much brighter due to the size. There were also a couple of times when the shuttle had undocked and was flying close to the ISS and you could see them passing together with a slight separation!
Re: ISS over Texarkana tonight.
Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 9:04 am
by WildBill
I got to see Sputnik!
Re: ISS over Texarkana tonight.
Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 9:30 am
by jimlongley
WildBill wrote:I got to see Sputnik!
And listen to it.
Re: ISS over Texarkana tonight.
Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 10:01 am
by Keith B
Yeah, some of you guys are old.
Re: ISS over Texarkana tonight.
Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 10:27 am
by jimlongley
Keith B wrote:Yeah, some of you guys are old.
And I got to talk to Owen Garriott while he was up there, on a handheld radio with a hand held antenna of my own making.
Re: ISS over Texarkana tonight.
Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 11:00 am
by Keith B
jimlongley wrote:Keith B wrote:Yeah, some of you guys are old.
And I got to talk to Owen Garriott while he was up there, on a handheld radio with a hand held antenna of my own making.
I missed Owen, but did get QSO's with 2 different shuttles and MIR 3-4 times when they were operational. Once QSO was with a flight where a friend was a mission specialist. She was tied up doing an experiment, but was able to yell 'Hi' to her via the other Hamstronaut and she yelled back to me over the open mic.
Re: ISS over Texarkana tonight.
Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 6:16 pm
by WildBill
Keith B wrote:jimlongley wrote:Keith B wrote:Yeah, some of you guys are old.
And I got to talk to Owen Garriott while he was up there, on a handheld radio with a hand held antenna of my own making.
I missed Owen, but did get QSO's with 2 different shuttles and MIR 3-4 times when they were operational. Once QSO was with a flight where a friend was a mission specialist. She was tied up doing an experiment, but was able to yell 'Hi' to her via the other Hamstronaut and she yelled back to me over the open mic.
Did you get a QSL card? Do hams still do that?
Re: ISS over Texarkana tonight.
Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 6:40 pm
by Keith B
WildBill wrote:Keith B wrote:jimlongley wrote:Keith B wrote:Yeah, some of you guys are old.
And I got to talk to Owen Garriott while he was up there, on a handheld radio with a hand held antenna of my own making.
I missed Owen, but did get QSO's with 2 different shuttles and MIR 3-4 times when they were operational. Once QSO was with a flight where a friend was a mission specialist. She was tied up doing an experiment, but was able to yell 'Hi' to her via the other Hamstronaut and she yelled back to me over the open mic.
Did you get a QSL card? Do hams still do that?
Yep, one from each shuttle and two from MIR from different Cosmonauts. The one from the mission my friend was on is signed by her!
Re: ISS over Texarkana tonight.
Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 6:50 pm
by WildBill
Keith B wrote:WildBill wrote:Keith B wrote:jimlongley wrote:Keith B wrote:Yeah, some of you guys are old.
And I got to talk to Owen Garriott while he was up there, on a handheld radio with a hand held antenna of my own making.
I missed Owen, but did get QSO's with 2 different shuttles and MIR 3-4 times when they were operational. Once QSO was with a flight where a friend was a mission specialist. She was tied up doing an experiment, but was able to yell 'Hi' to her via the other Hamstronaut and she yelled back to me over the open mic.
Cool.
Did you get a QSL card? Do hams still do that?
Yep, one from each shuttle and two from MIR from different Cosmonauts. The one from the mission my friend was on is signed by her!
Re: ISS over Texarkana tonight.
Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 6:53 pm
by WildBill
BigGuy - Sorry for the thread hijack. I have seen the ISS a couple of times. I have been a follower and supporter of the U.S. manned space flight program since project Mercury.
Re: ISS over Texarkana tonight.
Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 6:58 pm
by sjfcontrol
Keith B wrote:WildBill wrote:Keith B wrote:jimlongley wrote:Keith B wrote:Yeah, some of you guys are old.
And I got to talk to Owen Garriott while he was up there, on a handheld radio with a hand held antenna of my own making.
I missed Owen, but did get QSO's with 2 different shuttles and MIR 3-4 times when they were operational. Once QSO was with a flight where a friend was a mission specialist. She was tied up doing an experiment, but was able to yell 'Hi' to her via the other Hamstronaut and she yelled back to me over the open mic.
Did you get a QSL card? Do hams still do that?
Yep, one from each shuttle and two from MIR from different Cosmonauts. The one from the mission my friend was on is signed by her!
Keith, Howard Wolowitz is not a "her", no matter what Raj thinks.
Re: ISS over Texarkana tonight.
Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 7:42 pm
by jimlongley
WildBill wrote:Keith B wrote:jimlongley wrote:Keith B wrote:Yeah, some of you guys are old.
And I got to talk to Owen Garriott while he was up there, on a handheld radio with a hand held antenna of my own making.
I missed Owen, but did get QSO's with 2 different shuttles and MIR 3-4 times when they were operational. Once QSO was with a flight where a friend was a mission specialist. She was tied up doing an experiment, but was able to yell 'Hi' to her via the other Hamstronaut and she yelled back to me over the open mic.
Did you get a QSL card? Do hams still do that?
I got the Garriott QSL but when I had a water problem in my house in 1993, I lost it along with hundreds of others, and a bunch of other stuff. I have the satisfaction of knowing I did it, standing just off Washington Avenue Extension alongside the road with a handheld two band radio and a home brew antenna that I pointed by hand. There was a local net letting everyone around know when the pass was. At that time of day Skylab could be seen passing over the Albany area, just barely, and I just aimed my antenna visually and dropped my call, and got a report. But of course the way it worked, you didn't know for sure until your call showed up on the confirmed list weeks later.