The following message appeared on sci.astro.amaateur, and is interesting in that it appears, on the basis of my Traksat-based simulation, to represent a "resolved" sighting of Mir when the space station was not directly illuminated by the sun. Working through the optics and ranges involved, I come up with 10-15 meters as a resolution element, assuming the observer had standard vision, so it isn't out of the question that he could have seen the shape of Mir. Comments are solicited. ********************************************************************* >Newsgroups: sci.astro.amateur >Subject: L-shaped Satellite??? >Organization: Novell Advanced Technology Group >X-Posted-From: InterNews 1.0.7@atg5.orem.novell.com >From: jerome@acm.org (Manta Ray) >NNTP-Posting-Host: gronk.provo.novell.com >Message-ID: <30400145.0@gronk.provo.novell.com> >Date: 27 Aug 95 5:23:17 GMT >Help me out -- I'm not sure what I saw. I was panning the skies of >Northern Utah tonight (26 August) at 10:45 PM (approx. 4:45 UTC on >August 27), looking toward the southern horizon when I noticed a very >faint L-shaped object tracking due south. I don't believe this was an >airplane because I saw no blinking lights. In fact, I saw no point >light source at all on this satellite. I was viewing with a Celestron >SP-C6 equipped with an 18 mm orthoscopic (net magnification of about >42x). I believe it was L-shaped because of the obscuration pattern in >the background stars. >This was a most curious sight before I lost it in the horizon. Any >help on what I might have seen will be greatly appreciated. Please >e-mail to the address in the signature below. >====================================== >= Jerome A. Broekhuijsen------------ = >= Novell Advanced Technologies Group = >= --------------------jerome@acm.org = >====================================== ************************************************************************** TRAKSAT Version 2.80 Tracking Station: PROVO, UT, USA [ Line Of Sight (LOS) Visibility ] [Y in the last column indicates Mir was in direct sunlight, N indicates it had passed into the Earth's shadow.] Satellite: Mir Satellite Data Set: 1 16609U 95238.15420642 .00002456 39708-4 0 2693 2 16609 51.6459 167.3971 0003174 32.5065 327.6121 15.57289705543838 Date Time (UTC) Azim Elev Range Ra Dec Alt V HR:MN:Sec Deg Deg Km HH:MM:SS DD:MM:SS Km -- Rev # 54399 -- Sun 27Aug95 04:47:00.0 309.34 1.44 2136.73 11:53:18 +29:58:28 400 Y Sun 27Aug95 04:48:00.0 310.99 5.93 1724.53 12:03:18 +34:21:57 400 Y Sun 27Aug95 04:49:00.0 313.60 12.04 1318.04 12:17:06 +40:29:19 399 Y Sun 27Aug95 04:50:00.0 318.61 21.72 927.71 12:42:19 +50:25:30 399 Y Sun 27Aug95 04:51:00.0 332.70 40.50 590.02 14:22:51 +69:15:60 399 N Sun 27Aug95 04:52:00.0 46.50 61.34 449.39 22:14:35 +54:59:24 399 N Sun 27Aug95 04:53:00.0 101.46 35.40 650.29 23:28:51 +14:32:03 398 N Sun 27Aug95 04:54:00.0 112.38 19.19 1005.02 23:51:36 -03:32:35 398 N Sun 27Aug95 04:55:00.0 116.66 10.51 1400.41 00:05:21 -12:37:25 398 N Sun 27Aug95 04:56:00.0 118.98 4.83 1808.90 00:16:04 -18:17:11 397 N Sun 27Aug95 04:57:00.0 120.47 .55 2222.06 00:25:29 -22:21:52 397 N