Thanks to the information posted earlier by Ron Lee and Rick Baldridge, we were treated to a beautiful sight. At approximately 6:16 PM EST today (2000 Feb 08/23:16 UTC), the rocket+plume became visible at the "2 o'clock" from Polaris. At first, the body itself was comparable to gamma Cas (V=2.15) and, as it moved to the lower right, the plume rapidly spread, in the 7 o'clock direction, to about 2+ degrees long and perhaps 1 degree wide. Within about a half minute, the rocket itself became quite dim (although still visible in binoculars) and the plume "turned off" away from the rocket. (Words are quite inadequate here; maybe someone was able to video this?) We saw one of these unexpectedly a year or so ago and this time, thanks to SeeSat, we were ready for this lovely sight. Clear and dark skies! Ed and Darlene Light Lakewood, New Jersey, USA 40.107 N, 074.232 W, +69 ft ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Feb 08 2000 - 16:50:46 PST