The waymarking game was
established in September, 2006. This cache that’s dedicated
to it will provide you with an opportunity to get up close
and personal with nature, as I did when I first checked this
place out.
It’s secured via a lock so you’ll
need to locate the key inside a waterproof match container at the
base of a metal sign post just west of the cache. You’ll find that
this baby is a bit of a trick to get open; surprise, surprise. The
cache is, in keeping with the Space Station theme, like a space
ship -- and guess what, it has a room for a (real) captain at its
base!! You’ll have the opportunity to try to see and feed him too!
Make sure to read the red lettering
below!
Now about the waymarking game. As
stated above, it’s called
International Space Station
Sightings. It’s designed to promote an interest in space
and science. One requirement for getting a waymark is to be one of
two or more people that see
the ISS fly over one after (or before) the other. Each
participant must be a minute or more ISS travel time apart. One
minute, that’s not much you say? Well consider this! In that amount
of time they move across about 300 miles of ground. Three hundred
miles is indicated by the radius of the red circle in
this image. The drawing of the contiguous United States shows
two different paths that the ISS moves along if it passes directly
over the cache. I made that drawing to go along with my new
ISS Sightings Waymarking Game TB. For the game, my challenge is to locate players
along the diagonal lines. The likelihood of finding a player that
could see the same pass as I could is greatest along the red parts
of the lines.
To find a player I first go to
Heavens-Above.com and find a 45° (or
higher pass) over my area. Then I find someone else at least 300
miles away in the general directions the ISS will be traveling. I
use
the ground track available at Heavens-Above and geocaching.com to
locate caches (and or waymarks) that have owners living fairly
close by. I ask them to participate. If they are interested, we
make plans and I for one pray for good
weather!
So how did I find the location for
this cache? I think it was serendipity. On one good pass back on
Monday, Dec 18th, 2006, I raced out to a relative’s place and got a
picture of the ISS with the Shuttle Discovery attached. The two
together were very bright indeed! As they passed through the
asterism called the “Great Square of Pegasus,” I took
the time exposure you see here. Notice that I marked the asterism
with a faint green line. Click on the picture to get to the larger
image.
Just in 1/19/07. Take a look at this new NASA
Reference Guide to the International Space Station!
I wanted to photograph the event at a
location where I could leave a cache. As I was looking for a spot
on the edge of my relative’s land I found an uncannily fortunate
place. I stood on my tiptoes and peered into the cavity with
flashlight in hand and whoa, no more than 6 inches from my nose was
a cute little bug-eyed deer mouse looking up at me! We were both
surprised.
Here’s a picture of the cute little bugger just as I saw him right before I
left.
Not wanting to ruin his quant little home
with a PVC pipe set atop it, I decided to make him a new home, a
drier one at least. I made the cache like a spaceship and gave the
deer mouse a captain’s quarters.
You can even try to see him at home. To do
this, when you first arrive notice the foothold. Stand on it a
sneak a peak into the cache hole. Immediately press down on the
aluminum square until it stops. That’ll be about an inch of travel.
That will close a little opening to his home. When you lift the
cache from its place, look through the window and see if he’s
there! When you return the cache and lock it back in place, make
sure to fully lift the aluminum tab. If possible don’t invert
the cache. The bar that locks the lid in place has a hooked end
that can be used to fish goodies from the cache. The log is in a
match container with a magnetic lid.
Before you go, find the bottle of food
nearby and feed him his allotment. The instructions for where to
place the food is attached to the key needed to unlock the
cache.
Consider playing the game! One
last note: a few days after I took a picture of the ISS with the
Shuttle leading it, both as they entered the Earth’s shadow. On
12/23/06 it was featured on SpaceWeather.com! It’s the top image
here.
=============================================
Listed below are the latest Visitation
Rules for the ISS Sightings Game. Simply read the steps beginning
with both number ones and go to whatever step it tells you to go to
next.
1 You observed a *community pass (distance is
irrelevant in this case) Go to 2.
1 You observed a pass that
**has no waymark
established. Go to 6.
2 You already own an ISS waymark. Go to
5
2 You do not own an ISS waymark. Go to
3
3 The ISS passed over your location at or
above the minimum altitude requirement. Go to 4
3 The ISS passed over your location under
the minimum altitude requirement. Go to 6
4 Feel free to make a visit to the nearest
waymark established for the community pass you also observed.
[[[There is no real need to contact the owner of the waymark.]]]
You must list (1) the date, (2) the time of your local maximum
altitude, (3) your maximum local altitude and (4) upload a
Heavens-Above image of the ground track past you position. NOTE! If
you have a GPSr and a digital camera, please
post a photograph of your GPSr next to the printed ground track
image. Take the picture at the location from where the
observation was made.
5 No matter what the altitude of your pass
you may visit the nearest waymark made for a community pass that
you also observed one or more orbits after you made your waymark.
See 4 above for more details.
6 Sorry but you cannot claim a
visit.
*Community pass: a
pass that was observed by ***two or more players
that were at least 293 miles (472 km) apart. This pass must
be in accordance to the altitude requirements set forth in
the game rules.
**Watch
for this! You may claim a visit to a waymark made for a pass that
you saw but only sometime later learned was made into a
waymark.
***In the rules there is a
provision that will allow a single player to make a waymark if the
other/s were clouded out.