Re: Shuttle in darkness

Bruce Watson (wats@scicom.alphacdc.com)
Sat, 13 Jan 96 10:22:54 MST

Paul Maley writes:

>To respond to Bill Bard's note:

>I verified moments ago that indeed 4 cargo bay lights were on between 1100 
>and 1205 GMT today, in addition to the cabin lights. So the overall 
>brightness of the orbiter was no doubt due to the cargo bay illumination. It 
>is up to the crew's discretion as to when to turn these lights on and off. 
>The SFU grapple is now scheduled to occur very close to the nominal plan.

This from Gary Emerson of Mt. Thoridin, Colorado, message dated: 1993
Dec 07.

Last Sat. morning I was able to observe the shuttle in darkness because they 
had the lights on in the payload bay.  The floodlit payload bay is about 8th
magnitude at a range of 1500 km.