Seen Over Your House Today

[PR19_Kit]

When I lived in Longhope at the north end of the Forest of Dean we had Buccs, Hunters, Tonkas and Hawks all turning on their wingtips right over the centre of the village.

Some years later, while talking to a Bucc pilot at Lossie, he confirmed that Longhope Village WAS one their turning points on a low level route in the area. 

[PR19_Kit]

800 mm? 

You should be able to take pics of the ISS with that! 

Well, blow me down, I did that tonight, and with only a 300 mm lens! 



My mate Pete's a serious astronomer, and he knew the ISS would pass o'head here at around 2030 BST tonight. As it happened the sky was clear and the Sun's angle made the ISS VERY visible indeed, not the least because it was travelling so damn fast! 

I can't recall ever seeing it before and I was amazed how quick it was going, so I rushed and put the big lens on my Pentax and had a go at shooting it. The exposure time was about 0.75 second, thus its wobbly path across the pic.

So in one shot I got the fastest (17000 mph) and the furthest distance away (260 miles) subject in one go.   

[Rheged]

Well done sir!!!  I am profoundly impressed.

[Mossie]

It'll pass over again tonight Kit, around 9.13 and be visible for around 5 mins.  The sky should be clear enough for you to see it.

If you have a tripod and remote shutter you should get a pretty good shot of it.  I've seen some reasonable photos even with a smartphone.  Or take a very long exposure to get a trail shot.

[Mossie]

I've got a small telescope, I might have a go myself tonight if I can find my phone adapter.

I wanted to take the moon last night but couldn't find it for the life of me.  I lost it before so did the thing most likely to lose it again, put it in a safe place...  .

[Mossie]

E-3 going into finals for Waddington.

Still hardly any international traffic but there's a lot of GA traffic, taking advantage of the good weather and easing of lockdown restrictions.

[kitbasher]

In addition to the regular red kites, parakeets, miscellaneous small garden birds, gulls, etc - a buzzard!

And this is less than a mile from the edge of Greater London and only 6 miles for Heathrow.

Also recent evidence of a sparrow hawk - we know when but we didn't see it.  Nor did the pigeon it took!

[JayBee]

OK If you want to see the ISS use this link.
It is provided by NASA but at the moment is set to my home location, Prestwick.

https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/sightings/view.cfm?country=United_Kingdom&region=Scotland&city=Prestwick#.YGNUmdjTUdU

[rickshaw]

Doesn't go over Australia.  Talk about a rip off!  We paid $Au350 million dollars for this thing...

[PR19_Kit]

Didn't see it last night, there was maybe 3/8 cloud and it was patchy.

We did think we saw it at one stage, but as it came more o'head I noticed that it was showing red/green nav lights and an anti-collision beacon as well.....

[PR19_Kit]

I heard some aerobatic noises this afternoon, that rising and falling sound of a 6-cylinder Lycoming at full throttle as the aircraft loops and rolls, so I got the big lens and ran outside......

Nothing in sight, the aircraft must have been behind the housetops, but as I was about to return I heard a familiar drone and an RAF A-400M Atlas cruised overhead. 



No mistaking it for a C-17 this time, the shutter stopped the props! 

[Rheged]

Possibly the same one I had over our house at about three pm.  VERY low and flying west into Wales.

[Spey_Phantom]

just flying over, although it is bad weather (had to look on ADS-B radar to identify..), was a C-130K ofthe Austrian Air Force 

[Rheged]

Heard rather than seen....a Hercules.  From a brief glimpse of the nav. lights, it was heading West.

[Captain Canada]

Been busy here last week, 2 C-5s, 2 KC-135s, an RC-135V, and 3 C-17s. Dried up after that. I was even down in Windsor for 4 nights where I usually see USCG and KC-135s. But this time, nothing !