ISS Brightness

The ISS did a very nice pass tonight. With the shuttle docked and the new cargo pod attached, I would rate it as bright or brighter than Venus. It went by both Venus and Jupiter and was dazzling! If you get a chance, take a look. I think the brightness estimates need to be updated on Heavens-Above.
Brian

I was just going to post about this same topic..

The ISS will be doing two passes over me, one thrusday, and one saturday. I had the priveledge of spotting through my c80ed last year at this time, when I had no idea it would be flying over. I would want to attempt to take some photos of it. Does anyone have any pointers?

My equipment:
Celestron c80ed mounted on a meade 127ed, on an lxd 650 mount. I have 2 prime focus adapters and a projection adapter coming tomorrow. I was thinking about tracking it manually through the c80, and having a camera attached to my 127 using the projection adapter with a meade series 4000 plossl. The camera is a nikon d80, which hopefully i will have in focus.
My goal is at least one photo, with a bit of shape to it, instead of just a streak of white

Ideas welcome

Regards;
Keith G
Wolfeboro NH

Well, ISS just flew over. My first attempt at anything other than a few pics of the moon, taken with a meade 127ed at prime focus with a nikon D80. It was really hard to follow looking through the camera viewfinder, and my RA lock broke in the cold and was stuck half tightened. Blurry, but way better than I expected, seems I have never attempted this before.

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