ISIS watching

Turned on the computer this morning and got a message from NASA that the space station would be going over in five minutes --

“Time: Sat Mar 05 5:41 AM, Visible: 5 min, Max Height: 87°, Appears: 30° above SW, Disappears: 10° above NE”

So I ran out and watched it.  It appeared almost instantly, slid across half the sky, and was fading away when it got lost in the trees to the northeast.

As it happened, it was a close match to Jupiter, low in the west.  Jupiter’s almost at opposition, at magnitude -2.1; only Venus gets brighter.  And Jupiter looks a lot cooler in the telescope.

The space station is bright white; low Jupiter was pale yellow.

Weather willing, we’re going to do some astronomy tonight.  The Alachua Astronomy Club is having a star party out at Rosemary Hill Observatory.  Gay doesn’t want me lifting any heavy telescopes, so I’ll probably just take the little Questar.

So it’s going to be a pretty full day.  Bike out to studio, draw some luscious naked woman (or whoever shows up) and then Gay will pick me up, and we’ll go out to Town of Tioga, where they’re doing a street fair.  Junk food and interesting stuff.  I’ll remember to take the camera, with its newly charged battery.

Reconsidering, though . . . with all this going on, I think maybe I’ll drive to studio.  Otherwise I’ll fall asleep over the telescope, and that’s no fun!  And can be dangerous.  You do want to see stars, but . . . .

joe