Re: STS pass prediction for Friday wanted
Robert G Fenske Jr (fenske@rgfpc.electro.swri.edu)
Tue, 2 Dec 1997 08:27:37 -0600 (CST)
On Tue, 2 Dec 1997, J.C. Millot wrote:
> We will have a public astro session Friday night here in Noumea, New
> Caledonia, from 19:00 local time (8:00 UT) to 24:00 (13:00) or may be
> later.
>
> According to the last elsets, there will be a STS-87 pass around 19:28
> local time (08:28 UT). But I know that these elsets will be wrong as the
> STS-87 will land only a few hours later.
>
> >From the last elements known and knowing the date and time of landing, is
> there anybody able to give some elsets for the last few hours or any pass
> prediction for our location if elsets cannot be computed.
Whatever elsets you have now should be close enough. The shuttle
is bright enough (i.e. easy to spot) so that having predictions that are
some seconds off won't matter too much. I have used days old elsets
before to predict the reentry pass so I could observe the plasma trail.
These passes happen about 10 minutes before the landing in Florida. I
just start observing a few minutes before the predicted time. So I
figure that if elsets are good enough for within 10 min of landing they
should be good enough for the last few orbits.
Robert Fenske, Jr. rfenske@swri.edu Sw |The Taming the C*sm*s series:
Southwest Research Institute /R---\ |
Signal Exploitation & Geolocation Div | I | |"The Martian canals were the
San Antonio,Texas USA ph:210-522-3931 \----/ | Martians' last ditch effort."