A "line" over Venus
Mark Taylor (cg1@ssnet.com)
Thu, 14 Mar 96 19:45:20 EST
I just saw the STRANGEST thing, a completely chance event...
I popped outside to take a quick eyes-only glance at Venus, and in those
few seconds that I was looking a small "something" lit up about 1/4 degree
above Venus, and about 1/4 degree to its South. It travelled North,
dead-parallel to the horizon, until it was 1/4 degree North of Venus, and
vanished as quickly as it appeared. It only lasted less than 1/2 second
for the 1/2 degree travel, and did not reappear anywhere else (within ~20
seconds that I waited) Recalling it from memory, it almost seemed to leave
a streak, but was probably persistence of vision.
The factoids are:
Viewed from Newark, DE ( approx 39d N by 75d W )
Local time 7:41pm 3/14/96 ( 0041 3/15/96 UT )
Any idea what (satellite perhaps) it was that "peeked" into the sunlight
for just a moment? It didn't remind me of a meteor, but I suppose it could
have been...
If it was a satellite, how could it get into and out-of the sunlight by
going South-to-North in the due-West like that? I suppose it
*could have* just barely slipped into the edge of the curved boundary
just as I was looking at it, but WOW, what are the chances?
It was too awesome to really be adequately described by words...
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Mark C. Taylor Delaware Software Architect and Backyard Astronomer
cg1@ssnet.com http://www.ssnet.com/~cg1/index.html
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With geographical longitude 75d W and latitude 39d N a small satellite
(Prospero, 1971-93A, #05580) was 0.9 deg *below* Venus at 00:41.0 UTC
moving with 0.4 deg/second South-North!
Since Venus was almost due West, a small shift to the West (to 75.6d W,
39d N) gives a pass 0.2 deg *above* Venus for 71-93A.
71093 A
1 05580U 71093 A 96068.12750612 .00000203 00000-0 45364-4 0 6843
2 05580 82.0454 96.3469 0592091 50.7061 314.5080 13.78712393213219
Rainer Kracht 1996 Mar 15
R.Kracht@t-online.de
+9.6626E, +53.7695N, 9m