To see a detailed map, click in the area of the map below that you want to magnify.
(SourceForge is being a bit balky about loading all the images- click the stop button, then the Go or reload button till you get them all.)

Paris Mountain State Park area junction of I85 & 385 Simpsonville area Gray Court area junction of 385 & 221 Clinton areaTo observe the transit, you should be no more than about 1/2 mile off the center track.  The actual time of the transit crossing- which will take only about 0.4 seconds (don't blink!)- should be within a second or two of the predicted times; you can set your watch from nist.time.gov/timezone.cgi?Eastern/d/-5/java

Here's a way of photographing the transit without a telescope: binocularCamera.html  (a similar contraption could be used for viewing the transit with your own eyes).

From the general location of I85 & 385 (34.8405 N, 82.3183 W), spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/SSapplications/Post/JavaSSOP/JavaSSOP.html shows the space station's track across the sky as a red line, below.  The interval between the dots in the space station path is 10 seconds; it's traveling from upper right (northwest) to lower left (southeast):

Mercury is shown very near the Sun, and in fact it will also transit the Sun on May 7: aa.usno.navy.mil/data & aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/Merc_transit03.pdf

Weather links:

www.weather.com/outlook/recreation/detail/29302

www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/satellite/latest_US_vis.jpg

www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/satellite/latest_CLT_vis.jpg

www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/satellite/latest_MGM_vis.jpg

www.weather.com/maps/maptype/satelliteusnational/usvisiblesatellite_large.html

www.weather.com/maps/maptype/satelliteusnational/eastcentralusvisiblesatellite_large.html


For the benefit of subscribers to the ISS Transit email-alert web service (iss-transit.sourceforge.net/TransitAlertSignup.html or j2ee-consultants.com/TransitAlertSignupBody.html), I automated the plotting of the transit tracks using Microsoft Streets & Trips 2002, and Macro Express.  This Zip file contains the macro in the form of exported text, transit.mex, as well as the executable form, transit.mxe, which you can place on your desktop, for example, and then click on to run (after installing Macro Express).  satellite.ico is an icon that you can place into C:\Program Files\Macro Express\Icons and then associate with the macro.  You can also associate a "hotkey" with the macro, such as Alt-t.

To use the macro, cut & paste the points that you want to plot from your email-alert into Notepad, Emacs, or whatever, and save them in C:\WorldView\plot.txt (or change the macro to reflect where you want to operate from).  For example, I plotted the track at the top of this page using:

s   35.1  3 May 2003 12:50:18  33.8365 N,  81.8446 W  69.204  154.345  259  34.9795 N,  82.4956 W  (34.9803 N,  82.4960 W) 
s   31.6  3 May 2003 12:50:19  33.7931 N,  81.7905 W  69.268  154.453  259  34.9332 N,  82.4364 W  (34.9340 N,  82.4369 W) 
s   28.3  3 May 2003 12:50:20  33.7496 N,  81.7364 W  69.332  154.560  258  34.8869 N,  82.3773 W  (34.8876 N,  82.3778 W) 
s   25.5  3 May 2003 12:50:21  33.7060 N,  81.6824 W  69.396  154.668  258  34.8405 N,  82.3183 W  (34.8413 N,  82.3188 W) 
s   23.2  3 May 2003 12:50:22  33.6625 N,  81.6284 W  69.460  154.777  258  34.7941 N,  82.2594 W  (34.7949 N,  82.2598 W) 
s   21.8  3 May 2003 12:50:23  33.6189 N,  81.5746 W  69.524  154.885  258  34.7477 N,  82.2005 W  (34.7485 N,  82.2009 W) 
s   21.2  3 May 2003 12:50:24  33.5753 N,  81.5207 W  69.588  154.994  258  34.7013 N,  82.1417 W  (34.7021 N,  82.1421 W) 
s   21.7  3 May 2003 12:50:25  33.5316 N,  81.4670 W  69.652  155.104  258  34.6548 N,  82.0830 W  (34.6556 N,  82.0834 W) 
s   23.1  3 May 2003 12:50:26  33.4879 N,  81.4132 W  69.716  155.214  258  34.6083 N,  82.0243 W  (34.6091 N,  82.0247 W) 
s   25.3  3 May 2003 12:50:27  33.4442 N,  81.3596 W  69.780  155.324  258  34.5618 N,  81.9657 W  (34.5626 N,  81.9662 W) 
s   28.0  3 May 2003 12:50:28  33.4005 N,  81.3060 W  69.844  155.435  258  34.5153 N,  81.9072 W  (34.5160 N,  81.9076 W) 
s   31.3  3 May 2003 12:50:29  33.3567 N,  81.2525 W  69.908  155.546  258  34.4687 N,  81.8488 W  (34.4694 N,  81.8492 W) 
s   34.8  3 May 2003 12:50:30  33.3130 N,  81.1990 W  69.971  155.658  257  34.4221 N,  81.7904 W  (34.4228 N,  81.7908 W)

After you've loaded up plot.txt with the points you want to plot, start Streets & Trips in full-screen mode, and zoom to your general location (say +/- 50 miles).  You also should zap the S&T "legend," and drag the drawing toolbar (assuming that you've elected to display it at all) from the bottom of the program window, to where I have it (top of this page), like so:

Then run the macro!

Here's what the macro looks like in Macro Express's macro editor (I snagged this image using SnagIt, using window capture with autoscroll):

3 May 2003