A Milstar Titan IVB+Centaur launch is scheduled for 21:35 UTC/GMT (16:35 EST, 15:35 CST, etc.) on Tuesday, January 21. Previous such Titan/Centaur launches have, several hours after the launch, resulted in an artifical "comet" due to venting of excess fuel from the Centaur. I have been fortunate enough to see two of these with Mike McCants, 97-068 to a Molniya-type orbit, and Milstar 5 to a geostationary orbit. (On another attempt the weather prevented any observation by us. Mike heroically drove a couple of hundred miles around central Texas that night, with me as passenger, trying to find even a small hole in the clouds.) These "comets" are visible without magnification for quite a few minutes -- and of course are even more interesting if seen with magnification (including seeing other related events dump, such as the objects slowly drifting apart after payload deployment)! Also, for the 2001 launch, Mike tracked the ascending Centaur plus payload for several hours, during which time we observed a few flashes, presumably due to slow spin-stabilization rotation. (When the conditions permitted, Mike tracked the Centaur for a few weeks, until it drifted too far west.) There is some discussion of previous such events, including the Cassini launch, in these messages: 2001 Milstar http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Jan-2002/0160.html http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Jan-2002/0166.html 1997 NRO http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Nov-1997/0141.html http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Nov-1997/0147.html 1997 Cassini Centaur http://satobs.org/seesat/Oct-1997/0246.html http://satobs.org/seesat/Feb-1998/0200.html Rick Baldridge managed to get videography of the 2001 Milstar. Mike has one of Rick Baldridge's images on his site, under "Image Intensifier Picture of Milstar 5 Centaur Fuel Dump". There was also a video that may be available. Gordon Garradd photographed Cassini and its Centaur, along with the then-faint associated cloud. Small and large versions are on the VSOHP near the end of this page: http://satobs.org/telescope.html So, what I'm trying to say is that, based on past launches (i.e., "caveat lector"), this could be a rare chance for observers in the Americas to see (and photograph) an unusual phenomenon -- an ephemeral artifical earth-orbit comet, plus related events if a telescope is used. Those from other continents who have unlimited budgets, free times, and a certain level of optimism and enthusiasm might even consider a visit to the mid-to-lower latitudes of this hemisphere, between perhaps longitudes 70 and 130 west, for this event. I should mention that reasonably good suggested search elements will be required in order to have a good chance to track the ascent, so we can only hope that someone or ones (You know who you are.) might provide them. Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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