Greetings all... Had a spectacular show from Superbird-A last night from my yard in Alexandria, VA (38.803N, 77.050W). I'd just dusted off my 9X63 binox and, at about 0306 UTC (3/31) saw a bright (2nd magnitude) yellow flash from the 'bird. I followed the flashes for the next 6 minutes as they steadily declined to invisibility. I'm hoping (against hope) that the weather stays clear thru Saturday, as we're scheduled for a star party at one of our local "dark-sky" haunts. This'll be a fun one to show the folks... Last weekend the family and I were on a short cruise to the Bahamas. We were about 80 miles east of Miami when my wife and I watched a spectacular pass of HST (I never get a good view of it from home...) We both noticed two very distinct, sharp fades (more like blinks) to invisibility during the pass, then a rapid brightening to mag -2 just before shadow entry. I can understand the brightening, but what about the fades? We both saw them, so I assume they are real (we were, after all, on a cruise...) Cheers, Geoff +===========================================================+ | Geoff Chester grc@usno.navy.mil Public Affairs Office | | http://www.usno.navy.mil US Naval Observatory | | 3450 Massachusetts Avenue, NW | | (202) 762-1489 (FAX) Washington, DC 20392 | |-----------------------------------------------------------| | "Each passing hour brings the Solar System 43,000 miles | | closer to the globular cluster M13 in Hercules; yet there | | are still some misfits who insist there's no such thing | | as progress!" -- Ransom K. Fern | +===========================================================+ ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Mar 31 2000 - 07:11:17 PST