ISS Blue

Sue J. Worden (worden@uts.cc.utexas.edu)
Wed, 24 Feb 1999 08:02:12 -0600 (CST)

As Ed Cannon mentioned in an earlier email, we had a very nice pass of
ISS over Austin last night (1999-02-24 01:27 UTC).  Peak magnitude was
about -1.5.

The really interesting thing about this pass was the brilliant blue
color.  ISS was a very easily distinguishable whitish-blue color just
before and just after culmination, which slowly faded to bluish-white,
then finally to white, after culmination.

ISS was moving roughly west-southwest to north-northeast, culminating
at 62 degrees in the northwest.  The sun elevation was about -14 deg.
Here's the QuickSat output for this pass:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
  30.321  97.773 1000.   Mount Bonnell            2000  3.5 20 F F T T T

***  1999 Feb  23  Tue evening  *** Times are PM CST  ***  19 8  621

 H  M  S  Tim Al Azi C Dir  Mag Dys F  Hgt Shd  Rng  EW Phs  R A   Dec

25544 IntlSpaceStn   98067A                        -0.1
 7 26  9  0.0 34 247    33  0.8   1 7  248 194  414 1.6 128  151   0.6
 7 26 33  0.0 44 257    40  0.0   1 7  248 180  344 2.0 121  2 8  12.3
 7 26 56  0.0 56 277    56 -0.6   1 7  248 163  295 2.6 109  233  28.4
 7 27 20  0.0 62 318 C  92 -1.0   1 7  248 145  278 3.1  94  318  47.9
 7 27 43  0.0 55 356   126 -1.0   1 7  248 125  299 3.0  78  449  65.1
 7 28  7  0.0 43  15   141 -0.7   1 7  248 103  350 2.5  67  741  72.4
 7 28 30  0.0 34  24   148 -0.3   1 7  248  80  422 2.0  60 10 8  69.7
------------------------------------------------------------------------

--Sue Worden (worden@uts.cc.utexas.edu)