In a message dated Thu, 18 Apr 2002 9:01:40 AM Eastern Daylight Time, William Harwood <bharwood@earthlink.net> writes: >Hi. Saw both from Merritt Island just south of the Kennedy Space >Center; 22-degree max elevation in the northeast. ISS was clearly >brighter than Atlantis, leading the shuttle by about an inch, >inch-and-a-half, on a ruler held at arm's length. Just spectacular. Last evening clouds rolled in that were dense enough to totally obscure the moon but had enough openings to catch the end of the pass. At 20:49 EDT (00:49 UTC, 18 April) Atlantis led the ISS by about 7 seconds or about 3 degrees of arc. They were descending in the due south at an elevation of about 40 degrees. Both were about -2 mag. Evening of 16 April (EDT): In the twilight (Sun elevation ~ -5.5 deg) of the evening of 4/16 (20:08:45 EDT, 00:08:45 UTC, 17 April) the ISS/Atlantis became visible in the due north at about a 35 deg elevation. Within the next minute they brightened to -3 mag with occasional flares somewhat brighter as they descended in the eastern sky. Later in the evening (21:44 EDT, 01:44 UTC 17 April) there was a low elevation pass in the west. As Atlantis/ISS (docked) passed (az 270, el 18deg ~ +2.5 mag) I tried unscuessfully to observe the orientaion. I was using a 6"dob at 34x with an 80A filter. I would think that there was too much range and I should use a bit more magnification (100x ?) for future passes. Cheers, Don Gardner 39.1799 N, 76.8406 W, 100m ASL http://hometown.aol.com/mir16609/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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