Observations of NEAR
Jim Scotti (jscotti@LPL.Arizona.EDU)
Mon, 19 Feb 1996 17:00:03 -0700 (MST)
With the help of George Lewis at JPL, we were able to get images of the
NEAR spacecraft about 15-16 hours after launch on Sunday morning using
the Spacewatch telescope on Kitt Peak. Robert Jedicke carried out the
observation, getting 6 images over a bit more than half an hour. The
spacecraft and its booster appear as 2 faint trails in the images, the
brighter being around V magnitude 20.0-20.5 while the fainter is about a
magnitude fainter. The spacecraft was between about 310,000 and 320,000
kilometers from Earth at the time. I have made the images available as a
mosaic along with one closeup at the following URL:
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/spacewatch/NEAR.html
We've had bad weather since and have not been able to try for it again.
Jim.
Jim Scotti
Lunar & Planetary Laboratory jscotti@lpl.arizona.edu
University of Arizona 520/621-2717
Tucson, AZ 85721 USA http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/