Hi all, Wanted to record probably my last sighting of Mir to you all... Under crystal clear skies, and only semi-dark we viewed the last possibly good visible pass of Mir from our location. Despite predictions, the station appeared out of nowhere about 30 degrees altitude in the northeast. (predictions showed it to appear in the northwest). The pass was visible about two minutes later than the prediction, at 6:26 p.m. ET. At about 6:27, the station appeared to flare to almost -1.0 and turned from a mellow orange to a brilliant blue-white before again mellowing to a yellowish orange. Thi s was the most notable of this pass. That wraps up five years of Mir passes for me. I've watched Mir in the wee hours of the morning, during public stargazes, at amateur star parties, in my front yard, after work, before work, at 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning in almost a bright sunrise. I've watched noble passes that scanned the entire swatch of the sky, and short little passes that barely skimmed the treeline. On time I had my whole family on the front yard, including my mother (now deceased) and father. My daughter had arranged our lawn chairs in the configuration of an "airplane" to view the pass, she was about seven years old. I'll miss the Mir! Penny Fischer-Otte 40.297N 74.359W ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Manager, Space Forum http://www.outdoors.net/space Monmouth Mobile Observer's Group Monmouth County, New Jersey http://www.monmouth.com/~govega/mmogindex.htm Penny Fischer's Astronomy Page http://www.monmouth.com/~govega *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 : Sat Mar 10 2001 - 15:55:19 PST