Obs Shuttle, Mir seen 230 miles apart

Chris Kalmar (ckalmar@worldnet.att.net)
Fri, 03 Oct 1997 19:32:38 -0600

These appeared 30 degrees apart with the shuttle leading, 
the shuttle is much brighter (=saturn) with Mir mag2 at this angle.
As the sun set on Atlantis I coulnt see mir at all
The shuttle is in a lower orbit but the inclination allowed it to be
illuminated a minute longer than Mir.   Sunset went dim then red then gone.
Conversely, I was able to spot my city (west of Chicago) easily in
the shuttle camera 4 nights ago over a satellite dish on NASA select.
The light pollution is terrible here and the city was putting out
as much light as many lightning flashes do in the same camera.
Chicago has some extremely bright areas on it. South Japan is nearly dark.
Separation given by NASA TV right after the observation.


object   Date     TimeZ      OB   az   el   ra  dec       Mag
86- 17 A 97-10-04 00:56:05   CK   176  34.6 19:54 -13'14"  1 ->inv mir   16609
97- 55 A 97-10-04 00:55:15   CK   176  34.6 19:54 -13     -2 ->inv sts86 24964

n42 02 10.4 w91 40 19.0 (Iowa USA) 90' dry air slight haze record high.
GPS time ref.


Someone mentioned a hearsat-l  do you mean the grove.net list or is there
another?