Maybe a large bird at a very long range could qualify as the object in the lunar-transit movie. SeeSatters wrote: >> ... at 60 degrees, 3.33 km. I think these altitudes >>are too high for a small bird. What about a larger bird? > >I've seen very small birds ... at cloud base around 1 to >1.5 km .... Whether the small birds would do it at night >is another question .... Perhaps during migration? FWIW, migrating bar-headed geese fly over the Himalayas twice per year, and it's claimed they've been seen flying over Mount Everest and other high peaks: http://magazine.audubon.org/birds/birds0011.html At night? Here's a quote from the above article: ] One evening during a Himalayan expedition, he was ] startled by the honking of night-flying bar-headed geese ] passing directly over Mount Makalu's 27,824-foot summit. Bar-headed geese are about 75 cm (30 inches) long or tall. Probably their wingspan would be about twice that (?). The other day I wrote: > At 1/1000 lunar distance (about 385 km), it's 7 meters in > diameter (satellite size). So, at 1/10000 l.d. (about 38.5 km), "it" would be .7 meters in diameter (goose size). Based on information I received in a private message, at a range of about 40 km, 0.5 degree in 24 seconds would be roughly 400 meters, or 1000 m/minute, or 60 km/hour. (Hope my math is correct!) Bar-headed geese fly at a "cruising speed" of up to 80 km/hour. So, if I've done the math correctly, it seems that a large bird at a surprising range could a candidate for the movie. By the way, the Audobon article says, "The highest-flying bird ever recorded was a Ruppell's griffon, a vulture with a wingspan of about 10 feet; on November 29, 1975, [one] was sucked into a jet engine 37,900 feet..." (about 11500 meters). I haven't checked the reports in the above article for urban (or rural?) legend status.... Lovely weather we are NOT having.... Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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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