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Subject: Mir by moonlight
From: Robert Preston
Reply To: mapug@shore.net
Date: Thu Nov 10 21:30:07 1994

At 00:18 UT on 11/11, using LX200 8"f10 with 26mm super Plossl, actual field of view 0.68 degree, I was waiting at R.A. 19:44.4, DEC -20 deg,36 min, staring hard through the eyepiece in an attempt to see Mir pass by, illuminated by the light of the half moon (Mir was in eclipse by Earth).

IT HAPPENED! ZIP, it shot across the field, looking like a fat 4th or 5th mag star, smack through the center of the field. Then I sat down in near disbelief.

If you don't believe me, try it yourself: this was a stock LX200 ver 3.20L, 2-star-aligned with known site = Pittsburgh, using eyeballed centering of the alignment stars in the center of a 4.7 mm UWA eyepiece, with Vega and Markab being the two alignment stars. It took about 10 minutes to set the scope up and align it (I was in a hurry, it was 00:08 UT). Then I waited at the coordinates for the Mir-Uranus conjunction, as predicted with Kelso's most recent TLE data and Tim D's SkyChart2000 ver 2.2 beta for PowerMac. The computer and the scope were both set to WWV time the day before, and remained within one min. accuracy relative to a quartz wristwatch set to WWV yesterday. The predicted conjunction time was 00:20. I don't know why Mir showed up two minutes early. It makes a nice accuracy test, doesn't it?

Waiting now for a Lunar-STS or Lunar-Mir Transit prediction. That should be fun to see, I would think. It'd take fast film to stop the motion, though: Anyone feel challenged? (Solar transits could use shorter exposures ;-)