Mir resolved in shadow??

Allen Thomson (thomsona@netcom.com)
Mon, 4 Sep 1995 10:04:57 -0700

     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