low altitude: STS-86
Walter Nissen (dk058@cleveland.Freenet.Edu)
Tue, 30 Sep 1997 12:20:26 -0400 (EDT)
Saturday morning, Atlantis was still about 2.5 minutes behind Mir when I
was able to follow her flight to what seemed to me to be a very low
altitude. (I didn't follow Mir similarly because neither my binoculars
nor my brain are equipped with split-screen mode; but I might mention that
I did plan the pickup (AOS for you radio types) for Mir very carefully and
was able to see her emerge gradually and in various garbs of red and
orange, much like what Ron Dantowitz has described from computer
tracking). I finally lost sight of Atlantis at 19970927 092904.48 UTC.
As one of the leading advocates of recording, measuring and reporting
astrometric positions, I should mention that there were no visible stars
anywhere in the vicinity to make an astrometric position possible.
I'm not sure how accurate this elset from JSC (I didn't find anything
which looked better at OIG) is:
STS-86 Atlantis-Predicted Post NC3
1 24964U 97055A 97270.17990931 .00002738 00000-0 36798-4 0 9071
2 24964 51.6515 293.3433 0038250 54.8519 305.6217 15.69858480 184
but using it and a small personal equation (the difference between eye and
the hand on the stopwatch, perhaps a poor .7s for this OBS), I compute an
altitude of
2.2 degrees
for Atlantis at that time. I doubt I've seen any LEO much lower. I don't
know how this compares to extreme low altitude OBS of other observers.
Cheers.
Walter Nissen dk058@cleveland.freenet.edu
-81.8637, 41.3735, 256m elevation
---
Venusset is much underappreciated. Watch 50 or 100 of them to an altitude
below 1 degree and you'll never trust the atmosphere or a UFO report again.
This entertainment is readily available in the evening this season.