Hi All, At the risk of upsetting Tom Wagner ;-) I saw a beautiful and colorful pass of ISS/Shuttle at ~21:45 PDT this evening from southern California. The pair started off orange, low in the NW and gradually transitioned to white by the time they reached the zenith. (Culmination was within 5 degrees of zenith!) Shadow entry began soon after zenith, with obvious reddening as the station entered the penumbra and dimmed. I'm glad I was watching in binoculars at this point because a dim satellite lumbered by crossing right over eta-Bootes mere seconds ahead of ISS and thus just missing it (in perspective anyway). The second satellite was moving much slower in its higher orbit, shining at only about 5th magnitude. A 5-second SkyMap run later revealed its identity: Meteor 2-13 (#16408). They were separated by a good 570 km in altitude. The reason I was watching ISS in binocs was to see if I could continue to follow it after shadow entry by self-illumination. Indeed I could! It was only about 7th magnitude, but I was able to follow it for a good minute beyond complete umbra entry. On a final note, I want to reiterate earlier condolences offered to our list administrator, Bart. For those that have never met Bart, he's a terrific guy and is to be commended for keeping this List alive and well for oh-so-many years now. My heart goes out to you at this difficult time. My sympathies, Rob ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@satobs.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/sat/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jun 25 2002 - 20:50:33 EDT