Shuttle / Rev 0 re-visited

Alexander Seidel (ase@mail.stelljes.de)
Wed, 03 Jun 1998 13:37:50 +0200

Last night I posted a "no-show" statement for the Shuttle from my site
in Stade near Hamburg, Germany, and wondered why I did not see it 22 min
after launch despite clear skies.

With one of the first (or was it the first after orbit insertion?) TLEs
from Alan Pickup=B4s site ....

98034A                                           327 x 239 km
1 25356U 98034A   98153.95302259  .00002109  11260-4  10115-4 0    18
2 25356  51.6532 118.8872 0065835   0.7094 200.3554 15.96876098    05

... and with the help of Trakstar, I came up with the following
groundtrack at around shadow entry:

1998 Jun 02  22:28:00   49=F833'13" N     3=F827'38" E    298.856   =20
1998 Jun 02  22:28:01   49=F832'00" N     3=F833'13" E    298.901   =20
1998 Jun 02  22:28:02   49=F830'48" N     3=F838'48" E    298.946   =20
1998 Jun 02  22:28:03   49=F829'35" N     3=F844'22" E    298.991   =20
1998 Jun 02  22:28:04   49=F828'21" N     3=F849'56" E    299.035   =20
1998 Jun 02  22:28:05   49=F827'08" N     3=F855'30" E    299.080   =20
1998 Jun 02  22:28:06   49=F825'54" N     4=F801'04" E    299.125 ECL
1998 Jun 02  22:28:07   49=F824'40" N     4=F806'37" E    299.170 ECL
1998 Jun 02  22:28:08   49=F823'25" N     4=F812'10" E    299.214 ECL
1998 Jun 02  22:28:09   49=F822'11" N     4=F817'42" E    299.259 ECL
1998 Jun 02  22:28:10   49=F820'56" N     4=F823'15" E    299.303 ECL=20

So shadow entry occured over a location in Northern France, about 2/3
the way from Paris to the Belgian border. Seen from my site this must
have been near azimut 222 deg, elevation 23 deg, and so I should have
observed it just before shadow entry, if the neighbour=B4s roof hadn=B4t
unfortunately blocked the final maybe 2 or 3 degrees of the visible path
from the viewpoint on my balcony. The fate of a satellite observer -
well, better luck next time!=20

With clear skies over most parts of France and the Southern parts of the
UK, the Shuttle must have been a spectacular sight from more favorable
locations than mine. Steve Daniels saw it from SW England (see his
post). But I am curious who else of you European observers was
succesfull with it?

Alex
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Alexander Seidel          N 53.5932  E 9.4683  6m asl
Dankersstrasse 22         ---------------------------
D-21680 Stade, Germany    Fon/Fax    (+49) 4141 68772
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