Hi Ed, After doing some astrometry on Bryan's images I was able to measure positions of the Centaur. Comparison with the 40486/15011E JSpOC elset suggests the images were obtained between 04:15:54UT and 04:17:12UT. The size of the cloud increases from 1.16 to 3.18 degrees between the first and the last images, suggesting an expansion rate of about 1.5 arcminute per second. Tracing back the expansion in time suggests it started at 04:15:08UT. This is about a minute before the separation of the first MMS payload. It is very likely that this cloud is due to the spin up of the Centaur prior to separation of the payloads. The cloud certainly is denser on opposite sides, which would support that. Regards, Cees _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-lReceived on Fri Mar 13 2015 - 17:29:15 UTC
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