Last night I looked for the ISS on a pass about fifteen minutes later than this will be in local time, and failed to pick it up because the sky was just too bright. The shuttle pass over the UK today is co-incident with sunset. You will need to work out the azimuth and elevation fairly precisely in order to stand a chance of seeing the orbiter and the tank against that sort of background, particularly as it will be coming out of the sunset. However, like you I will be trying for it. A delay of one hour is out of the question - the shuttle must launch into the orbit plane of the ISS. The launch window for this is generally less than five minutes, representing a maximum dog-leg manoeuvre of plus or minus a half degree in longitude. The combined effects of the Earth's motion around the Sun and precession of the ISS orbit about the Earth produce a launch window which gets earlier by approximately 25 minutes per day. Your desired one hour delay for better viewing conditions would have been achieved from a launch on April 17. On 19 Apr 2001, at 13:13, Matthew.Fawcett@eastriding.gov.uk wrote: UK observers - keep your eyes peeled Westwards around 8pm local time tonight to see the shuttle and discarded external tank (assuming launch is on time). Worth seeing, I saw them last year just after launch, very nice sighting indeed. It'll still be quite light at that time so I'm hoping it will be delayed around an hour, then it'll be perfect! Matt Fawcett 53.893N 0.273W ********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. Please note that The East Riding of Yorkshire Council is able to, and reserves the right to, monitor e-mail communications passing through its network. If you have received this email in error please notify our mail manager at postmaster@eastriding.gov.uk Whilst every effort has been made to check for viruses in this e-mail and any attachments the Council does not warrant that it or they are free of viruses. If in any doubt then please ask for the hard copy. ********************************************************************** ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 bob@zarya.freeserve.co.uk www.zarya.freeserve.co.uk ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 : Thu Apr 19 2001 - 06:05:24 PDT