Neil Clifford <clifford@astro.ox.ac.uk> writes >sts99 and external tank (ice cloud in attendance, ET tumbling slowly) just >made a beautiful mag -2 pass over the UK. I second that :) Both made a pass reaching ~70 deg in the N at about 18:04 UTC as seen from Edinburgh. The two were about 1 deg apart but I'm not certain which was which. The brighter object was white and reached about mag -3, perhaps -4, being slightly higher and leading the fainter one. The latter was about two mag fainter, probably varying, very distinctly orange and at the apex of several jet-like structures that changed continuously during the pass. One or two of the jets were fan- shaped close to the object and others, up to 2 deg away, were narrow and aligned perfectly with the object. As I watched, I assumed the fainter jetting object was the degassing external tank. However, after calmer reflection, I wonder whether the tank was the brighter object and the fainter jetting object was STS-99 itself, perhaps firing its thrusters. Alan -- Alan Pickup | COSPAR 2707: 55d53m48.7s N 3d11m51.2s W 156m asl Edinburgh | Tel: +44 (0)131 477 9144 Fax: +44 (0)870 0520750 Scotland | SatEvo page: http://www.wingar.demon.co.uk/satevo/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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