I’m just getting around to posting about the International Space Station (ISS) passing over the Arizona High Desert last week. It was a pretty good pass, the ISS being visible almost from the west horizon to the southeast horizon. The maximum elevation above the horizon for this pass was 78°.
We use the on-line SpaceWeather.com satellite flybys tracker to predict when a suitable satellite pass will occur. We use the filter function to display only the ISS, since those are usually the most dramatic flyovers.
The remarkable thing about the photo is that I candidly snapped the flyover using my less-than-optimum pocket camera, a Canon PowerShot A1400, and got this relatively good image of the ISS as it passed high over the parapets of our little house. Click on the image to enlarge.
Always pretty to see it go over.
The first time I called out my wife to see it she was amazed.
Then a few days later, I talked to Richard Garriott while he was doing his Space Tourist thing , and she was flabbergasted!
Outstanding – I only heard Owen in the 80’s and did not work him. From the shuttle’s perspective, there must have been a LOT of QRM.
I heard Owen back then, too, and I guess this time having fully steerable a 13dBd antenna and a 350 Watt amp kind of helped me win the “Uplink Contention” battle!
That would have helped me a lot – a 5 watt HT and rubber duck just isn’t competitive. LOL