Re: NOSS constilation at Stellafane
Doug Biggerstaff (dbig@interlog.com)
Fri, 09 Aug 1996 11:35:05 -0400
Greetings,
David Bishop wrote...
>I found myself standing in a circle of people which included Al Nagler
>(the guy who makes eyepieces) and his new 5" refractor (which he was
>demoing). I was pointing out a couple of black nebula I know, comet
>Hale-Bopp, going "wow" whenever a good Persiad came over when something
>interesting happened.
>A NOSS constillation, 3 satellites flying in formation, popped into
>view. As an avid See-sater I knew exactly what it was, but due to
>my hard drive being down, I didn't know which one. Would somebody please
>run a pass for me?
>The pass was at 10:45 pm EDT (roughly, I was awfully busy at the time)
>going from about AZ 330 to about AZ 160, max el was aboput 70 degrees west.
>It passed into shadow at about 40 degrees south.
My wife and I, along with about 30 others, all hudling around telescopes,
also observed this
pass (Aug. 10) from Starfest, which takes place about 15 kms (10 miles)
north of Mount Forest, which may also be the location that Ted Molczan
referred to, west of Toronto.
Seeing was exceptional!, about mag 6 from this site. The Cluster was an
easy naked eye target.
We also observed the same cluster (NOSS 2-2) moving through Lyra the evening
before, Aug. 9 at about 11:30 EDT. The pass on the 9th was the brighter of
the two, I estimated about mag 4 on the 9th, and 5 on the 10th.
BTW, the "expert" in my little circle was Donald Parker, a somewhat well
known Planetary
observer and photographer. I remember one of his images of Mars on a cover
of Sky & Tel, alongside of, and compared to a Hubble image of the same
subject with similar orientation.
But I digress...
Beautiful passes that impressed many!
Later,
Douglas Biggerstaff, Toronto
dbig@interlog.com