Re: ET
Neil Clifford (n.clifford1@physics.oxford.ac.uk)
Tue, 19 Mar 1996 12:19:51 +0000 (GMT)
Philip Chien scribbles:
|>>What is the size of the ET from the shuttle and is it possible
|>>to observe the ET in daylight with binoculars when it passed
|>>over bevor decay ?
|>
|>As a guess I don't think it would be visible during the daytime since the
|>background sky is too dark. Although I'd suspect that with an afternoon or
Mag +2 or thereabouts with a reddish tinge, within a couple of degrees
of the shuttle (at a range of 500km + ; this was a 57 deg. launch viewed
from 52N in central UK). I would have thought that this would be
difficult to spot even in ideal daytime conditions unless you used a
computer guided telescope or similar.
|>Viewers in the far Eastern Asia, various Pacific Islands, and Hawaii under
|>certain circumstances can see the ET burn up during reentry. There's at
|>least one person in Hawaii who has successfully photographed the ET as it
|>burns a trail across the sky.
See Paul Maley's account at
http://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/sat/re-entry.html
regards,
--
Neil Clifford <n.clifford@physics.oxford.ac.uk>
http://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/sat/satintro.html