Hi, I had the most amazing sight of the ISS+STS complex last night (16/10/00 23h57 - 23h59 UT). The complex had a magnificient tail of about 3 degrees in a strongly C shaped curve like a hook. It reminded me one of those fishing flies. I'm I correct in assuming that this tail was the water vapor produced by the shuttle engines used to boost the ISS to an upper altitude? Can anyone explains me why it looked so strongly curved? It was so curved that the end of the tail was almost leading the complex! I also had the chance to observe the previous pass (16/10/00 22h21 - 22h27 UT) and I noticed that the sky around the complex was a bit darker that the background. This darkening was not uniform around the complex but looked more like irregular spikes. I was observing this almost overhead pass with 8x56 binoculars. It was very subtle and I put this observation on the account of an optical illusion. But after seeing the next pass I'm wondering if this wasn't the water vapor of the engines? Does anyone know if the engines were on or activated near that time. Thanks! Clément Drolet Beaumont, Qc Canada 46d51m N 70d57m W ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 : Tue Oct 17 2000 - 07:32:04 PDT