Re: Mir or Atlantis?

Neil Clifford (n.clifford1@physics.oxford.ac.uk)
Fri, 29 Mar 1996 11:56:12 +0000 (GMT)

Clement Drolet scribbles:

|>I have just observed the Mir-Atlantis couple (Mar 29th 8h50 UT) they were
|>separated by about 7-8 degrees. Am I correct in assuming that STS 76 was
|>the leading one?

Yes, I think. I observed them during a pass this morning over the UK
(culmination near the zenith at 04:13:26 UTC). They were flying in
formation 2 degrees apart. At first both were equally bright (mag -1 to
-2) but the trailing object dimmed somewhat during the later half of the
lit portion of the pass. In binoculars it had a yellow/gold cast whilst
the leading object was still pure white and much brighter - I would say
that the first object was Atlantis (followed her to within 5 deg of the
eastern horizon). The mean motion of each implies that Atlantis should
be ahead of Mir (just):

STS-76      
1 23831U 96018A   96089.33361277  .00005249  11789-9  67502-4 0   210
2 23831  51.6487 164.0799 0007286 137.2796 113.1158 15.58382433  1108
Mir
1 16609U 86017A   96088.26269655  .00021115  00000-0  28498-3 0  4603
2 16609  51.6488 169.4479 0003390 115.4566 244.6777 15.57733385577394

|>BTW they passed over a bright elongated fuzzy star ;-)...an impressive
|>sight!

Quite nice from here too (at long last)....

regards,

-- 
Neil Clifford                             <n.clifford@physics.oxford.ac.uk>
                        http://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/sat/satintro.html