ISS and STS

From: Philip Masding (philip.masding@virgin.net)
Date: Wed Dec 12 2001 - 16:27:21 EST

  • Next message: Ted A. Nichols II: "Re: I saw ISS !"

    Hi everyone,
    Tonight Mike and succesfully videoed the STS and ISS as they passed over at
    about 1805UTC. As it came over the horizon I saw an approximately 1.5 degree
    vapour trail behind the two of them. This was through the LX200 10x50 finder
    which we use to initially acquire the ISS. The trail made the ISS look like
    a sort of comet. I was convinced we would never get an image of the STS
    because of the weather ( see below ) but with 2 minutes to go and the sky
    still clear I had to admit cloud was unlikely. Still the STS remained
    elusive since the angle of the Shuttle made it almost invisible. The ISS was
    clearly in a special flight mode for the reboost since my simulator
    predicted XVV and it was definitely not that. We will be processing our
    images over the weekend and hope to post them next week.
    
    We have had a bit of good luck with the weather in the last few days with
    the UK having cold, frosty, clear nights. So we have seen passes on the 9th,
    10th and 12th. On the 11th fog intervened. Today the forecast was cloud
    moving up from the south and I looked at some BBC webcams which indeed
    showed it arriving in London at 0900 and then Oxford by 1000, extrapolating
    meant we stood no chance of still having clear skies by 1800 but later on
    the cloud slowed down and we made it.
    
    Phil
    
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