The E-Mail below is being forwarded from Sky & Telescope columnist, Fred Schaaf, concerning visibility of last night's Minotaur-1 launch from Wallops Island, Virginia. It is followed up by a response from me, indicating that neither myself or John Bortle (an assiduous sky observer) saw any sign of the launch from where we were located in the Hudson Valley of New York State. -- joe rao In a message dated 5/20/2009 10:08:22 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Fred Schaaf writes: Hey guys, Was the Wallops launch cool or what? Considering how much more, not less, prominent the trail got 10, 20, 30 minutes after sunset, it's clear that it would have looked truly spectacular if the launch itself had been delayed until a little after sunset. As it was, seeing the intense orange "star" of the initial burn first appearing about one or two degrees above the horizon from East Point and rapidly rising really *was* striking. Joe (Stieber) and I got tempted and stayed longer to follow the final changes in the trail--as everyone at SOS must have seen, there were some amazing (relative) brightenings--increases in visibility--of different parts of the trail at different times and the western parts really drifted a lot to the west (must of have been strong east winds at that level) and so were able to keep visible until more than an hour after the launch. It was a good twilight too (including earthshadow and Belt of Venus edge visible up to maybe well over 20 degrees in the east before the edge was lost). Now, who can send me a best image or two or three? I'd like to show them to my class tonight (not to mention seeing them myself!). I'm copying Joe Rao and my friend Steve Albers on this to see if we can get more information on what the atmosphere was doing at different altitudes last night and how high was the (true) altitude of the rocket at each of its stage firings (also what was the exact "ground track"--how distant was the most distant part of the trail that we saw?). --Fred Hi Fred -- Well . . . it's obvious that being located in South Jersey and closer in to the launch site played a significant role in your seeing the launch. I was at News 12 Westchester in northern Yonkers and John Bortle was at his home base in Stormville, NY and neither one of us saw anything. Perhaps from your location, the Sun hit the contrail at just the right angle allowing it to stand-out against the background blue sky? John and I were about 300 miles north of Wallops Island; I suspect you were about half that distance (maybe a bit less?) In any case, I'm happy that somebody saw it . . . hopefully the next time they attempt a Minotaur launch it'll come after sunset, or maybe even in deep twilight. That'll make for a really great show for a much wider audience. All the Best! -- joe **************Dell Inspiron 15 Laptop: Now in 6 vibrant colors! Shop Dell’s full line of laptops. (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1222399266x1201456865/aol?redir=http:%2F%2Fad.doubleclick.net%2Fclk%3B215073777%3B3703434 3%3Bf) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed May 20 2009 - 14:39:30 UTC