Interesting! Something I wonder is how bright the shuttle would be in the = shadow from it's cargo lights, assuming they were pointing down. I'll = look for info (or someone can post it here) on the number of lights and = their brightness. Bill Bard wtba@eci-esyst.com -------------------------------------- Date: 1/12/96 10:40 AM To: Bill Bard From: Maley, Paul D. This is to report an observation of the STS-72 shuttle vehicle inside the = shadow of the earth from League City, Texas USA. At 1133GMT January 12 I observed the shuttle with a 13cm refractor at 20x at magnitude 7, then = video taped it passing below Spica at magnitude 6.5. Because the orbit perigee = was lowered yesterday, the slant range was only 186 statute miles, and its orientation was -ZLV (that is, payload bay toward earth). On cable TV we have the NASA select channel. From this, I could see that the crew cabin lights were on, and it is my suspicion that the cargo bay lights, which = have no telemetry, were NOT on at the time. According to Mike McCants Quicksat = program, the shuttle was 134 miles inside the earth's shadow at the time. = I attempted the same thing on an equally favorable pass at 0958 and had no luck. Paul Maley (email: pmaley@gp808.jsc.nasa.gov) ------------------ RFC822 Header Follows ------------------ Received: by qmgate with SMTP;12 Jan 1996 10:36:03 -0500 Received: by eci-esyst.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA04066; Fri, 12 Jan 96 10:31:18 EST Received: from mpehp1.mpe-garching.mpg.de(130.183.70.10) by = callisto.eci-esyst.com via smap (V1.3mjr) id sma004015; Fri Jan 12 10:30:29 1996 Received: from iris01.plasma.mpe-garching.mpg.de by = mpehp1.mpe-garching.mpg.de with SMTP (1.38.193.4/16.2) id AA06380; Fri, 12 Jan 1996 16:02:59 +0100 Received: by iris01.plasma.mpe-garching.mpg.de (931110.SGI/911001.SGI) for @mpehp1.mpe-garching.mpg.de:coverdale@iquest.net id AA01360; Fri, 12 = Jan 96 15:49:54 +0100 Resent-Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 08:50:40 -0600 From: PMALEY@GP808.jsc.nasa.gov (Maley, Paul D.) To: seesat-l@iris01.plasma.mpe-garching.mpg.de ('SEESAT-L') Message-Id: <1996Jan12.083605.1425.41549@jsc-ems-hub02.jsc.nasa.gov> X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail via PostalUnion/SMTP for Windows NT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=3D"US-ASCII" Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 08:50:40 -0600 Subject: STS-72 seen in darkness Resent-Message-Id: <"SEkWn3.0.BL.GKdzm"@iris01> Resent-From: seesat-l@iris01.plasma.mpe-garching.mpg.de X-Mailing-List: <seesat-l@iris01.plasma.mpe-garching.mpg.de> = archive/latest/1431 X-Loop: seesat-l@iris01.plasma.mpe-garching.mpg.de Precedence: list Resent-Sender: seesat-l-request@iris01.plasma.mpe-garching.mpg.de